Saudi Arabia - now a champion of women's rights

This is no joke, as the headline here says:

Saudi Arabia, with its dismal record on women’s rights, has been elected to the Commission on the Status of Women, a United Nations (UN) agency that is “dedicated to the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women”.

The august organization in question is the most humorless bunch of bureaucrats ever, so to suspect them of perpetrating a joke will be doing them a great injustice.

But the event itself is less interesting than the reaction to it in the media. Which is close to nothing. Not a single big media outfit (so far, at least) bothered to mention the travesty. Aside of the linked above Indian source and two Israeli newspapers.  Not.   A.    Single.    One.

Deal with it as you wish. Or don't deal at all.

Vladimir Putin: dotting some eyes

It might yet happen that I, in my senior waning years will start respecting a dictator. Well, no, hardly - but this speech is another confirmation of my belief that one must listen carefully to what everyone says, no matter where that everyone is on the political map.

Some more obvious concoctions could be safely ignored, but several points - like the one about reselling the Daesh-controlled oil (hey, Erdogan, how is that business going?), the Libya fiasco, the long string of other State Department (read White House) political and military failures - all these are great finger-in-the-eye comments.

The eye, though, is not blinking...

Recep Tayyip Erdogan: now in action finally. But what action exactly?

The half-mad half-Caliph finally started to do something about ISIS, after all these years of mouthing vague but passionate threats. The action against ISIS amounts to the following:

Three F-16 fighter jets took off from a base in Diyarbakir, southeastern Turkey, early on Friday and hit two Islamic State bases and one "assembly point" before returning, the prime minister's office said.

Hard to call it even a regular air force exercise. The other part of the same operation, however, looks a bit more serious:

Police also rounded up nearly 300 people in Friday's raids against suspected Islamic State and Kurdish militants, Prime Minister Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said after vowing to fight all "terrorist groups" equally.

Local media reported that helicopters and more than 5,000 officers, including special forces, were deployed in the operation. Anti-terror police raided more than 100 locations across Istanbul alone, broadcasters CNN Turk and NTV reported.

Emphasis mine, and I am sure you see why: the fearless leader is jumping on an opportunity to round up as many as possible members of the Kurdish opposition he hates so passionately (definitely more than he hates the ISIS abomination).

The "fight against all terrorist groups" covered the whole country, and if you read the detailed reports from the Turkish press you can easily detect who is really being rounded up.

To remind you, Turkey is a member of NATO and Recep Tayyip Erdogan is buddy-buddy with some high placed figures in Washington I am too tired now to mention. And he knows how to make them look the other way, no matter how depraved his treatment of Kurds is.

Too bad.

P.S. Want to bet that the flow of resupplies and reinforcements to ISIS through Turkish territory (including the European wannabe jihadis) will be curtailed? Then don't.

Ayatollah Khamenei and New York Times - the art of headlines

Some people don't understand my seeming obsession with newspapers' (and on-line newspapers') headlines. I do believe in the importance of watching this small facet of the media. After all, many of us start their day with a brief scan of the front pages, barely slowing down and clicking through only a selected few of the headlines that look interesting or cause some initial misunderstanding. Thus in many cases headlines inform us, scare us, make us smile etc, slightly adjusting our worldview - all this without any need to go into the article itself, no matter how much the contents of the article differ from the message conveyed by the headline.

Indeed, a man that sees something like "A vaccine for Ebola was developed" might get his positive boost for the day, especially if that man didn't know about tens of thousands that expired of the bug. Or a man that sees the insidious BBC's "Israeli planes attacked in Gaza" gets the message about the bloody Zionists without any need to click through and (possibly) to learn that the bloody Zionists responded to another series of rocket launches from the place. Etc.

So, you can imagine now my feelings after browsing through the headlines dedicated to the latest anti-American, anti-Israeli and generally incendiary speech by Ayatollah Khamenei. The message, very far from what the White House hoped to hear, is clear:

Iran's stance towards the "arrogant" US will not change despite the nuclear deal reached earlier this week, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has said.

Or, simply put in a graphic way:

But this was expected, more or less, and while the official White House/State Department will eat the crow silently, Juan Cole and his ilk will re-translate for us the words of the chief cleric in a more palatable manner... something with doves and olive branches in it.

What was less expected is the gutter level the bastion of the progressive media, the New York Times is ready to get down to. Here are the headlines of several (not especially right wing, it has to be said) media outfits:

Deutsche Welle: Khamenei: Nuclear deal 'won't change' Iran's stance on US
AFP: Iran leader says policy against 'arrogant' US 'won't change'
BBC (!): Iran nuclear: Ayatollah Khamenei chastises 'arrogant' US

And now comes the NYT headline about the same speech:

Ayatollah Khamenei, Backing Iran Negotiators, Doesn’t Fault Nuclear Deal

Fuck me sideways - the only thing that came to mind. And before you ask - the article does contain some of the Khamenei "criticism", although in the end part of it and without mention of the arrogance etc.

Nothing left but to remind, the umpteens time, the famous:


And now, for some comic relief, an in-depth review of the Iran nuclear deal. With many thanks to Dick Stanley, the Texas Scribbler.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan to send 18,000 troops to Syria

While the Western world is watching from the sidelines the Kurds fighting Daesh practically alone, and applauding limp-wristedly, as usual, one man in the whole world intends to do something about it. The Turkish Caliph wannabe, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, really intends to send his soldiers to Syria - to fight... the Kurds.

The bravery and the self-sacrifice of this long oppressed by all the Middle Eastern countries minority doesn't leave Mr Erdogan apathetic. Far from it: he hates the Kurds even a bit more than he hates the Zionists. So much so that, after years of impotently threatening the murderous Baby Assad regime and doing zilch to help the rebels, he is finally ready to send his troops in the harm way. But not to end the bloodshed, just the opposite.

On Friday, the country’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, accused Syrian Kurds of ethnic cleansing. He said: “I am saying this to the whole world: We will never allow the establishment of a state on our southern border in the north of Syria.

“We will continue our fight in that respect whatever the cost may be.”

Yeah. This is the leader of one of the members of NATO, a good buddy of the current POTUS and his diplomatic sidekick.

For shame.

Obama’s shameless Jewish cheerleaders

Isi Leibler on some Jewish Obama's supporters who pulled all the stops in their drive to earn some brownie points.

While U.S. President Barack Obama determinedly pursues his policy of appeasement, which may enable the world’s most dangerous terrorist state to become a nuclear threshold power, there are Israelis and American Jews who have initiated a campaign against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The campaign calling for the maintenance of bipartisanship toward Israel, is in reality undermining the hitherto strong bipartisan congressional opposition to the catastrophic U.S. policy toward Iran.

Israeli opposition groups and the anti-Netanyahu media are now concentrating their efforts on discrediting and calling on the prime minister to cancel his address to the joint session of Congress scheduled for March 3.

Disregarding the gravity of the negotiations with Iran — the underlying reason for the invitation — they accuse Netanyahu of destroying the U.S.-Israeli relationship by failing to obtain Obama’s advance approval to address Congress (which would never have been forthcoming). The White House even falsely alleged that Netanyahu accepted the invitation before they were aware of it.

More where this came from. Read it all.

Josh Earnest: clarifying His Randomness' words. Thanks, Josh.

This could have been funny if it weren't so said. Poor Josh E., I swear he is worth his weight in gold, doing a thankless job for a thankless (as usual) government.

Click on the text to embiggen

But the gist of it is simple:

Earnest: There were people other than Jews who were in that deli.
Q: That deli was attacked because it was kosher'?
A: No

The video recording of this scene:



And here Jen Psaki doubles down on Obama's claim that kosher deli attack Was 'Random'



All that mumbling makes it more important to support straight talk like this.

And more on the subject.

Scandal Rocks the U.N.

"A report on human-rights violations has been compromised not once but twice," says Anne Bayefsky in her remarkable article.

Furthermore, throughout her work for the U.N. Human Rights Council, McGowan Davis has been a member of the board of directors of the American Association of the International Commission of Jurists, which according to its website is “an affiliated organization of the ICJ in Geneva.” The ICJ participated in the July council session that adopted the resolution creating the 2014 Gaza inquiry. Prior to the vote and only two weeks into the war, this group of lawyers made a statement to the council, judging Israel guilty of war crimes and making a specific suggestion: “[T]he ICJ calls on this Council to establish a commission of inquiry to investigate all breaches of international humanitarian law and gross violations of human rights committed during the Israeli military operations in Gaza.”

Not only did the council adopt the ICJ’s recommendation, it appointed a member of the board of directors of the ICJ’s American affiliate to do the job — Mary McGowan Davis.

Three days ago, she accepted Schabas’s chair with alacrity and promised “a report that meets the highest standards of independence and impartiality.”

In what universe?

But read it all, definitely read it all.

Charlie Hebdo murders and three paragons of hypocrisy

Hypocrisy is the claim or pretense of holding beliefs, feelings, standards, qualities, opinions, behaviors, virtues, motivations, or other characteristics that one does not actually hold. It is the practice of engaging in the same behavior or activity for which one criticizes another.

One of the side effects of the recent Paris events was showing the gap (or a chasm by now) between the supporters of freedom and what Salman Rushdie perceptively called "But Brigade" in a sharper contrast.

The author said there should be no conditions placed on free speech; anyone who does, he referred to as the “but brigade.” "The minute I hear someone say, 'Yes, I believe in free speech, but...' I stop listening," Rushdie said...

To present some of the “but brigade” mental shenanigans, I have chosen (arbitrarily, I know) three outstanding representatives of the clan.

1. Noam Chomsky, the Mastermind of the (last) Century.

The distinguished professor of linguistics who considers himself to be an expert on life, the universe and everything, is one of the foremost upholders of absolute and untouchable freedom of speech. Including freedom of speech of Holocaust deniers[1], with some of whom he seems to be on the best terms.

Our subject appears to be also a master of "do as I say, not as I do" hypocritical variety. How else would you explain this staunch supporter of freedom of speech brown-nosing the chieftains of Hizballah (in the picture above) - people for whom freedom of speech is as alien a concept as pickled pig's knuckles?

Of course, one could mention[2] that the famous fighter against capitalism, the valiant anarcho-syndicalist is not only a wealthy man but also accepts money from the capitalist institutions he so despises and invests money in corporations he reviles.

So this is the man CNN has chosen to pen an article on the subject of hypocrisy (yeah, no kidding): Paris attacks show hypocrisy of West's outrage. And what is the main thrust of the piece? Not only it is a great representation of the "but brigade" stance, it uses for the "but" part the NATO "missile attack on Serbian state television headquarters" in 1999. Just a reminder: Chomsky, while knowing practically nothing about the case, remains an unrepentant denier of Bosnian Genocide. This is the man that complains about Western hypocrisy.

The principle of using the "but" logic was brilliantly debunked by Howard Jacobson in his article Try ‘and’ instead of ‘but’ and.... I would say that the headline itself conveys very well the Jacobson's main point, but do not deny yourself another example of his prose. Especially since Chomsky is debunked there as well.



2. Norman Finkelstein, "world renowned political science professor"

The "world renowned" part will remain on the conscience of the interviewer and his editor, of course. If the Fink is world renown, it is not exactly because of his prowess in the dense forest of political science. His "fame" is stemming from his preoccupation with the so called "Holocaust industry" - the phenomenon of Jews profiting from Holocaust - that he himself "christened", described and continues to profit from as long as he is able to. If this is not a prime example of hypocrisy, show me a better one.

Not to be outdone by prof Chomsky (his hero), prof Finkelstein has also made the pilgrimage to Lebanon (see the picture above), to prove his loyalty to the values of Mr Nasrallah. But no, he is no hypocrite, of course.

And, returning back to the interview, prof Finkelstein was much cruder than prof Chomsky. He considers the cartoons by Charlie Hebdo to be "political pornography no different than Der Stürmer".

I have no sympathy for [the staff of Charlie Hebdo]. Should they have been killed? Of course not. But of course, Streicher shouldn’t have been hung. I don’t hear that from many people," said Finkelstein.

Smashing, that, but then prof Finkelstein is in a much tougher (financially speaking) situation than prof Chomsky. He has to work for his daily bread and, being found not exactly suitable for a job in US (I wonder why, after all even professors that share his political views haven't lend a hand to their stricken comrade, as the comrade himself testifies), he teaches something in Turkey (Sakarya University, whatever it means). So he must make himself likeable to his hosts, I assume. But no, no hypocrisy in that, not at all...

And of course, he found his "but" point too, not to worry:

The characterization by the French of Muslims as being barbaric is hypocritical considering the killings of thousands of people during France’s colonial occupation of Algeria.

Why didn't he add the burning of Jeanne d'Arc and Napoleonic wars will remain forever unknown, I'm afraid, but this is the nature of Poli Sci professors.

The subject of this post is on the left.

3. Hon. George Galloway, MP: tyrants brown-nosed, straw men slayed.

Being a politician, on top of his other gainful employments, Mr Galloway easily tops the list as far as his range of activities is concerned. Many a tyrant on this planet experienced the restorative effects of our subject's tongue on his posterior. Many a radio/TV transmitter blushed of shame, being forced to transmit the insufferable crapola spewing from this character's mouth.

This time was no exception. The bounder has outdone even the previous subject, prof Finkelstein, in his rabid speech:

George Galloway boldly declared “Je ne suis pas Charlie Hebdo” during a damning address at a freedom of speech rally in Bradford on Saturday.

The Respect MP told a crowd of protestors gathered outside Bradford City Hall that the French government should be ashamed of themselves for standing by the “racist, Islamophobic, hypocritical rag” in the wake of the attacks in Paris that killed 17 people last week.

These are not cartoons, these are not depictions of the Prophet, these are pornographic, obscene insults to the Prophet and by extension, 1.7billion human beings on this earth and there are limits.

There are limits. There limits to free speech and free expression especially in France.

As you can see, this time Hon. George Galloway has succeeded to perform an ass-licking maneuver on a whole religion - no mean trick, I have to add. But then, years and years of practice lead to this shameful exhibition.

To conclude: the three protagonists of this post come from different backgrounds. All three are deeply damaged by some irreversible process or event in their lives, but this is a matter for a psychiatrist. It is easy, though, to find common symptoms: each one has visited Lebanon and served in his own lowly way this murderous terrorist outfit; each one is a liar and a hypocrite; all three hate Israel; etc. Given time and opportunity, I guess we'll see the three gracing the fledgling Islamic State capital, explaining to the world how just and awesome it is and how it should be understood in its true glory.

And we should fully expect each one of them explaining to us how hypocritical it is to object.

Yeah...

P.S. For the sake of fairness: Israel has its own set of blasphemy laws, preserving some remnants of a British rule.

In Israel, blasphemy is covered by Articles 170 and 173 of the penal code.[38][39]

Insult to religion

170. If a person destroys, damages or desecrates a place of worship or any object which is held sacred by a group of persons, with the intention of reviling their religion, or in the knowledge that they are liable to deem that act an insult to their religion, then the one is liable to three years imprisonment.

Injury to religious sentiment

173. If a person does any of the following, then the one is liable to one year imprisonment:

(1) One publishes a publication that is liable to crudely offend the religious faith or sentiment of others;
(2) One voices in a public place and in the hearing of another person any word or sound that is liable to crudely offend the religious faith or sentiment of others.

Fortunately, the 173.1 and 173.2 are not enforced too eagerly, if at all. The fact is that the latest edition of Charlie Hebdo could be obtained quite easily and freely here - albeit only as an Internet order.

Still shameful.

Addendum

Read more »

And meanwhile: Several EU countries are buying oil from IS

Several EU countries are buying oil from the terror organization IS. That was the startling announcement the EU ambassador to Iraq told the European Parliament recently.

Nice.

Western fear of angering Turkey leaves besieged Kurdish town at mercy of Islamic State

And you know what that means for the Kurds unlucky to remain there...

While Erdogan, the mad Turkish honcho, plays his power games with the West.

Turkish hostility to the embryonic Kurdish autonomous zones in northern Syria is the key to understanding Western and regional indifference to the fate of Kobani. Turkish armor is currently waiting on the border, facing Kobani, but no effort is being made to assist the Kurdish fighters. Indeed, the Turks have acted to prevent Kurdish volunteers from reaching the combat zone in recent days.

Bloody hell.

Israel vs Gaza: and the judgement is...

It is not yet a week since the escalation of rocket launches by Gazan rocket scientists was met by an escalation of IDF responses, but the world, initially somewhat critical of the Gazan rocket bombardment, has returned to its usual groove.

Of course, the moment that our air force switched from meaningless attacks on open spaces and empty buildings - actions that usually cause much hilarity to Hamas best and finest, the moment when IAF started hitting real targets, e.g. Hamas and Jihad functionaries, is also the moment when the numbers of killed and wounded innocent civilian bystanders started to mount.

And it is also the moment Hamas propaganda masters and their collaborators (willing and unwitting) around the world rev up their well oiled generator of crocodile tears.

Palestinian Ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour accused Israel of the "rapid deterioration of the humanitarian situation in Gaza". He stressed that most of the civilians in Gaza are refugees.

Of course, the party to blame in the above mentioned deterioration is Israel. No questions. And here is another guardian of innocent civilians, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, voicing his humanitarian concerns (ridiculous as it may sound, coming from a butcher of his magnitude):

Russian President Vladimir Putin told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the armed conflict between Israel and Hamas is leading to a large number of casualties among civilian population, and should be stopped as soon as possible, the Kremlin said.

And the august international peacemaking body, as usual, threw itself into feverish activity only after IDF got offensive:

Gaza cannot afford another all-out war, says Ban Ki-moon

UN chief urges restraint from both Israel and Hamas and tells security council that region is 'on a knife-edge'

Strangely (or not), UN is not willing to distinguish between the criminal and the victim, exactly as it is unwilling to do so during the period when "only" two or three rockets from Gaza fall on their neighbor. Strangely (or not), the concern for innocent civilians rises quite a few notches when IDF responds, rarely (if at all) so when the Gazan rockets are being launched.

But asking Mr Ban Ki-moon about the awfully strange "impartiality" of his position is not going to bear answers, that much must be clear to anyone who is familiar with the inner works of the "dictators' club" (TM Dick Stanley). For a better exhibition of the "balanced view" phenomenon I warmly recommend the usual bastion of progressive thought - the Guardian. Here comes one, but a very typical example of the so called impartiality:

'Israel under renewed Hamas attack', says the BBC. More balance is needed

And here is the (also too typical to be surprised) example of the balance:

There is no defence for Hamas firing rockets into civilian areas, and as sirens wail in Israel, the fear among ordinary Israelis should not be ignored or belittled. But the media coverage hardly reflects the reality: a military superpower armed with F-15 fighter jets, AH-64 Apache helicopters, Delilah missiles, IAI Heron-1 drones and Jericho II missiles (and nuclear bombs, for that matter), versus what David Cameron describes as a "prison camp" firing almost entirely ineffective missiles.

Imagine the author of this tirade, one Owen Jones, seemingly a regular modern metrosexual, responding to the continuous barrage of "entirely ineffective missiles" aimed at London (or wherever this luminary of progressive thought chooses to reside). Imagine him baying for blood of the terrorists (yes, the progressive British press doesn't shun the term "terrorist" when terror is applied to British subjects). Of course, being a progressive, Owen Jones will find a way to blame his PM, David Cameron, for being the (imperialist post-colonial, capitalist...) cause of the terrorism, but this will come later...

You can read the rest of that ridiculous (but oh so standard) piece that decides on the guilt according to the number of dead on each side... but here comes another example of impartiality that makes one want to barf: a description of the foiled attempt by five Gazan "commandos" to infiltrate kibbutz Zikim, which has a misfortune to be close to Gaza strip.

Israel claims to have foiled amphibious Palestinian assault

Let's ignore the doubtful tone of the headline: the article, after all, is a relatively benign description of the event. What would have happened inside the kibbutz, hasn't it been for the watchfulness of the IDF girl at the shore surveillance post, doesn't bear thinking about. But back to the point: what image did the Guardian's editor in charge of the article choose to illustrate the story? Here it comes:

Palestinians run following what police said was an Israeli air strike on a house in Gaza city.

And do you know what? After all this emetic hypocrisy, it was like a breath of fresh air to read an article penned by our open and unashamed enemy, one Mustafa Barghouti - of course, in the same Guardian. At least, the man is so blinded by his hate that he (inadvertently or not) confesses that it was Gazans who initiated the current escalation (see the second paragraph of the screed).

All in all, I have only one answer to the distasteful and hypocritical Olympic "impartiality" of the Western talking heads. But it is way too short, so before going there, imagine a criminal trial, where the judge sends both the criminal and the victim to jail, using as an argument "I don't care who started first"...

You see, your honor, we do care who started first. And now to our answer to the conundrum:

Do not try to kill us, because we shall do our considerable best to kill you first.


And meanwhile: this is how the last hour and a half in our lives look (click on the image):

P.S. And if you desire to see more people unencumbered by the Western hypocrisy I talk so much about, here comes the Hamas political head honcho, one under-assassinated Khaled Mashaal, with a not very much publicized quote:

Palestinian Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal said that “the abduction of the three teens in the West Bank is part of the Palestinian rage. That was a starting point."

So there. At least there are people who know where they stand and where they start, even if they can't be so sure where they will end up.

Crimea Mulls Switch to Moscow Time - I wonder why...

This headline of RIA - Russian Information Agency Novosti - is placed under the topic: Turbulence in Ukraine. Does it mean that Russians are still hesitating whether Crimea still belongs to Ukraine? Or are they just playing the farce out till the formal declaration of annexation I mean Crimean decision to join the brotherhood of autonomous, semi-autonomous and all these other kinds of virtual entities so familiar from Soviet times?

This schizophrenic indecision should continue for a few days, I guess. Meanwhile the pictures continue to come in, including ones from the Russian media:

In this picture you can see that, notwithstanding the part where Crimea conducts a referendum and declares self an independent state, to be able to formally ask Russia to accept it as a new whatever, Crimeans are running the Russian flag (in the background) together with the Crimean one over the building of their Rada (the Ukrainian name for the parliament, to be changed to the Russian "Duma" quite soon, I guess).

Enough with this nonsense, pretty please...

Stuff like this, I mean:

"There is an urgent need for Washington to take action to prompt Beijing to change its approach to cyberspace and deter future Chinese cyber theft," said the commission, set up by Congress to make policy recommendations.

Does somebody from NSA prepare these "policy recommendations"?

Or this:

With a queue stretching at least a kilometre, a hi-tech exhibition giving a rosy view of the house of Romanov and jointly organised by the Russian Orthodox Church and the Kremlin has drawn tens of thousands of visitors in central Moscow.

In another sign of the power of the Russian Orthodox Church in post-Soviet Russia, it is a holy icon which has drawn the crowds as much as nostalgia for Russia's ousted monarchy.

Sure, sure, and this is only logical, seeing the situation soberly:

Still, I prefer that one:

More... er... cuddly, ain't it?

At least here we see some normalcy and consistency... of a kind:

The president's support for the rule change comes eight years after then-Senator Obama opposed such a measure, warning in 2005 that "the bitterness and the gridlock will only get worse" if the rules were changed.

Nu, what are you crying about, the life is going on, people!

Emad Burnat's paper schweitzer

This post is not so much about what the Oscar nominee Emad Burnat says. It's more about things he doesn't mention.

Burnat's and Guy Davidi's documentary 5 Broken Cameras has been nominated this year for the prestigious Oscar awards. It's about the weekly demonstrations in the palestinian village of Bil'in. It can be watched online here.

Burnat wrote an opinion article at Huffington Post. It's what I call a paper schweitzer - you know, that cheese full of holes, more air than substance. The tricky part is that his holes are strategically placed in spots where real substance would have damaged the case he's trying so hard to make. Like this little hollow gem:

That's because, on any given day, there are more than 500 Israeli checkpoints, roadblocks, and other obstacles to movement throughout the West Bank -- an area less than 2 percent the size of California on which some 2.5 million Palestinians live under a ubiquitous system of repression.

 You have to admire the man's ability to pack so many half-truths, omissions, and outright lies in so small a paragraph. Kinda reminds me all those unsuccessful attempts to close the lid on an overstuffed suitcase. In this case, however, the lid must be thrown wide open, which is much easier, believe me.

I've never bothered to check the number of roadblocks and such throughout the West Bank. I remember a time when there weren't any of those "obstacles to movement", not in the West Bank, not in Gaza. A time when people travelled freely both ways - to and from Israel. A time when buses and cafes in Israel exploded at least twice a week, when palestinian workers took out kinves and murdered their employers or just passers-by on the streets, when mothers wouldn't take their kids to malls or other crowded places because fun could rapidly become very dangerous those days. To claim that the checkpoints are merely the actions of a system of repression, which is what Burnat does, is an outright lie. The so called obstacles are our way of defending our lives. Sorry to bother such an important person like an Oscar nominee with such trivial matters as few israeli lives, but they seem rather important from our side of the fence. Um...let's see: checkpoints versus exploding/knife-wielding allahu akhbar shouting cold-blooded terrorists. Tough choice - not!

"...some 2.5 million Palestinians live under a ubiquitous system of repression" - it seems that Burnat, although a talented cameraman, is not so bright when it comes to simple math. Only about 150,000 palestinian arabs live in area C, where Bil'in is, under partial israeli control. The rest, up to 2.5 milion, live in areas under the Palestinian Authority control. Could the PA be what he really meant by "ubiquitous system of repression"? If so, I'm in the rather unpleasant position of agreeing with the man. No point in arguing with  the truth, I always say.

 Coming up next, a really, really big hole in the paper schweitzer. I can't believe Burnat isn't aware of the twists and turns of Bil'in residents' legal battle against the israeli authorities, yet he chooses to write about "Israelis and Palestinians who understand that the true meaning of peace [...] is not the absence of tension, but the presence of justice". Um...tricky. The "presence of justice" is exactly what the people of Bil'in are not interested in, since they have already sued the israeli authorities - more than once - and won - mostly, but, as we'll see, justice wasn't quite what they wanted. From the above linked judgement (pages 5,6):

In accordance with the procedural agreement between the parties, a survey in the field with counsel of the petitioners in HCJ 11363/04 (Ms. Atiyah, adv.) and with representatives of the village of Bil'in was held on December 22 2004. During the survey Ms. Atiyah was given the map of scheme 210/8. It appears, from the State's response to that petition, that despite what had been stipulated, Ms. Atiyah did not appear at a meeting with respondents regarding sections C and D and did not relay any written response regarding those sections. At the opening of the hearing of said petition, it was relayed on behalf of Ms. Atiyah that the petitioners are rescinding their petition, and the petition was abated (on February 16 2005). The petition having been abated, respondents began implementation of sequestration order Tav/40/04 (Boundary Alteration) and the erection of the fence.
10. After just a few days a number of residents of Bil'in, represented by Ms. Atiya, adv., submitted a new petition (on February 21 2005; HCJ 1778/05). That petition was based on the argument that the fence construction work had begun without them having been given the right to a hearing and to appeal. The new petition did not mention the previous petition, which had been abated at the petitioners' request. At the end of the hearing of that petition, the Court ordered the abatement of the petition due to unclean hands (on March 3 2005).

Sorry for the lengthy quote. As can be clearly seen, the villagers of Bil'in have already won their petition.But then, they willingly canceled it, only to file a new complaint days later. Does it make any sense to you?

So...what justice are you talking about, Emad Burnat? The one you had but did not want?

Maybe a glimpse at those nonviolent demonstrations would shed some light on this rather puzzling matter:

Unclean hands, indeed.

Middle-aged grump on transsexuality and its haters

Francis Sedgemore, by his own definition a middle-aged grump with a disdain for collectivist ideologies*, posted several articles on the subject. In chronological order (or time line as Facebook regulars know it), the first article is the definitive one, where you can trace the whole story:

On Suzanne Moore, gender identity and penis fixation

As a personal disclosure: being a practicing hetero wihout transsexual friends, I don't have an ax of my own to grind in the matter discussed. On the general level, any outburst of hate to a group, especially one that was (and still is) oppressed and maligned as much as transsexuals do, causes me not a small measure of disgust. And when terms like “trans cabal” are freely employed, it is guaranteed to transform the disgust into revulsion. But read the whole article, if you please.

Now the second item in the series:

Inciting hatred of transsexual and transgendered people is a criminal offence

The circle of haters widens, it seems, and to my growing surprise, women of a feminist streak are the main inciters. Of course, the main venue (the Guardian Media Group) is significant too, but of secondary importance, and anyway I prefer to leave it without comments to Francis.

The next one contains an element of surprise:

Inciting hatred of transgendered people in general terms is acceptable in law

Apparently expressing your hate of transgendered folks in general is OK, as long as you don't aim your hate at a specific person or group of such. Nah, I am not a lawyer, but that one sucks big time, I have to say.

And the last piece for dessert:

Burchillgate is no free-speech issue

In this respect I tend to lean more to the lighter view as expressed** by Terry Glavin in his Censored No More: Julie Burchill. Ms Burchill, being a equal opportunity kneebiter, is known to have a strong word for everyone and everything and is really more entertaining than serious. But of course, she went over the top professionally and with habitual grace.

Anyway, read the whole and weep. As a side lesson (for myself, at least), I see another confirmation to the lingering suspicion of mine: our political correctness is still a thin layer of veneer. Scratch it (like in case at hand) and the old prejudices and hatreds erupt in force.

Too bad.

P.S. And three posts by Zoe Brain, a real authority on the subject, to complete the picture:

The Observer Screws Up

They've got form

They've got form (Part II)


(*) Which make him a member of my karass, between other things and in spite of other things, no matter whether he wants it or not.
(**) Although I strongly protest his use of "defenestration". But I suspect he done it on purpose...

Le miracle du président de Hollande

Now, now, please keep you undies untangled. It is Google Translate, of course, and for all I know it skewed the meaning. The single word in French that I can claim to master is unprintable, more or less.

Anyway, this is about a miracle. The Guardian publishes an article Hollande: the 'indecisive' French president who intervened in Africa by Pierre Haski, where - miracle of miracles - not a single bad word is said about the French intervention in Mail.

When you see a former deputy editor of Libération easily accepting (and on the pages of The Guardian, no less) such an act by a Western power, which happens to be his country as well, you want to ask an obvious question. The question being: what would have the same person written if the deed was done by American (or British) military?

Actually, you don't have to ask: I have prepared a short sampler for you already. Not that you can't predict Mr Haski's drift without reading it.

At least one can enjoy the famous Gallic in-your-face frankness (no pun intended), reading a quote like this from that article:

But abstaining when the Malian president sent an SOS last week would have meant taking a risk no French president wants to take. He would have been held responsible for the eventual fall of Bamako to radical Islamists, with its potential destabilisation of the whole west African region – including neighbouring Niger, France's main source of uranium for its nuclear industry.

Although it has largely taken a back seat in sub-Saharan Africa – compared with the first decades of the post-colonial era when it was clearly running the show – France remains a power to be reckoned with on the continent. Failing to act in such a crisis would have been seen by every French-speaking African government as a sign that France is no longer a reliable ally.

Mer... but I can't exhaust my whole cache of French words in one post.

So there.

Dmitri Yakovlev bill - the cannibal's mistake

Tit for tat in US-Russia relationship is one of many traditions surviving the demise of the Soviet Union. The story of Dmitry Yakovlev bill, which was a Russian response to the Magnitsky bill was, however, so absurd that it defies imagination. And who better to explain the absurdity than a Russian journalist, the intrepid and hard hitting Yulia Leonidovna Latynina? Her article, titled Cannibal's mistake, deserves reading, thus deserves a translation, even if a poor one, with Google's help. But first - some background.

On December 19, the State Duma voted 400 to 4 to ban the international adoption of Russian children into the United States. The bill was named after Dmitri Yakovlev, a Russian toddler who died in 2008 of heat stroke, being neglected by his adoptive American father.

This measure was an obvious response (in the tit for tat custom) to the Magnitsky bill, so named after a tragic death of a Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitski, who died in prison, where he was put on a fabricated charge. Jailing of Magnitsky was a punishment for investigating and making public many cases of corruption by various Russian public officials and oligarchs.

So here comes Yulia Latynina to tell you about hypocrisy of the Dmitri Yakovlev bill. While a bit too naive about the American society, she doesn't mince words describing the grim reality of the modern Russia and its orphans.

Enjoy.

Read more »

Politicians on Syrian massacres: who is being crafty and who is being woozy?

These two news items show the answer to that question:

U.S. backs Chapter VII resolution for Syria

The U.S. treasury secretary said Washington was considering a Chapter VII resolution at the U.N. Security Council, which authorizes the use of force in Syria.

Nice show that, especially when everyone knows that such a resolution doesn't stand a chance to pass through Russia and China in UNSC.

Annan: Iran could help remove Assad

Iran and other nations could create plan to ease Syrian President Bashar Assad from power, special envoy Kofi Annan was to tell U.N. Security Council Thursday.

For a man who travels a lot, Mr Anan has a great and steady provider for whatever shit he smokes (or sniffs or...). But then, traveling a lot he knows a lot of people, so why I am not surprised?

Mohamed Merah's ugly legacy

Right after the brutal attack on a jewish school in Toulouse, when everybody still believed it to be the act of a neo-nazi, opinion columnists immediately jumped onto the anti-Sarkozy bandwagon, blaming the french president and his party for the recrudescence of far-right ideology in France. However, when it became clear that the murderer was arab and muslim, the opinion columnists immediately jumped into...the anti-Sarkozy bandwagon, of course. Leaving aside the astonishing absence of the term "antisemitism" in opinion pieces about a deliberate attack on jews, what's striking in these articles is the columnists' view on the victims, as mere instruments for political leaders to use as they see fit and rightly so.

And now this:

A teacher has been suspended in France for allegedly asking pupils to hold a one-minute silence for gunman Mohamed Merah, who killed seven people, according to local reports.

A french teacher has asked her french students to hold a one-minute silence for the murderer of other french students...Why?

Because, according to her students, the teacher claimed that Merah's links to Al-Qaeda were invented by the media and by - you guessed it - Sarkozy himself.

I'm not sure how to label the hysteric demonization of Sarkozy, which ironically puts him on a par with our own Bibi. Is it an issue of ideological left against political right? The wall-to-wall condemnation of Sarkozy's politics in the left leaning media in the aftermath of the massacre seems more like a cult-like alignment behind prevailing preexisting beliefs than serious evaluations of realities on the ground. The New York Times editorial goes even further:

In response to these killings, Mr. Sarkozy has proposed tightening some laws, but his approach seems far too broad. He would make it a crime to repeatedly view Web sites that advocate terrorism and would take action against French residents who travel abroad for training or “indoctrination” by terror groups. It is not clear how such rules would be carried out, or if they can be without curtailing the rights of law-abiding people

I'm not advocating putting people under a microscope, but what about the rights of law-abiding people not to have their loved ones slaughtered by residents who travel abroad for training by terror groups?

The more I think about the reasons behind this vicious attack on Sarkozy, the more it seems that what really triggered it wasn't the outrage at the murders, or concern for the values of western democratic societies. No, it was this wonderful opportunity to smear an opponent and bring the flock of his voters back to the folds of the left. I'm at a loss of words for a definition of this attitude - "moral bankruptcy" floats in and out, but somehow it doesn't seem right. How do we call a situation where ideology trumps morality, common sense, facts on the ground, basic human emotions like compassion? Wouldn't it be the same kind of extremism that's likely to curtail the rights of law-abiding people who happen to be on the wrong side of this ideology?