OstrichRevolt

Death of a Palestinian Highlights Confusion Over Gaza Truce By...

Fri, 23 Nov 2012 19:43:47 -0500

Death of a Palestinian Highlights Confusion Over Gaza Truce
By JODI RUDOREN and ISABEL KERSHNER, nytimes.com

The fatal shooting by Israeli soldiers of a Palestinian man did not fracture the cease-fire that ended eight days of fighting between Hamas and Israel. But it did showcase the confusion that remains over the deal.

leaveobashar: Freedom for Syria’s citizen journalists...

Sun, 30 Sep 2012 19:07:05 -0400

leaveobashar:

Freedom for Syria’s citizen journalists languishing in Assad’s dungeons …

Thanks to Wissam Al Jazairy

marcmanley: “For the past 50 years, we’ve been fishing the seas...

Sun, 30 Sep 2012 19:03:26 -0400

marcmanley:

“For the past 50 years, we’ve been fishing the seas like we clear-cut forests. It’s hard to overstate the destruction. Ninety percent of large fish, the ones we love — the tunas, the halibuts, the salmons, swordfish — they’ve collapsed.” Dan Barber.

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Fri, 28 Sep 2012 16:03:41 -0400

Israel's favorite Arab dictator of all is Assad

Fri, 28 Sep 2012 15:57:21 -0400

Israel's favorite Arab dictator of all is Assad :

leaveobashar:

Both Assad senior and Assad junior advocated resistance against Israel. This slogan was hollow, serving the regime merely as an insurance policy against any demand for freedom and democracy.

As strange as it sounds, everyone in Israel loves Arab dictators. When I say everyone I mean both Jews and Arabs. The favorite dictator of all is president Assad. As Assad junior inherited the oppressive regime in Syria, so did both Jews and Arabs transfer their affection for the dictator from Damascus from Assad senior to his son.

Following the intifada in the Arab states, Bashar al-Assad maintained in an interview to the Wall Street Journal that the situation in Syria is different, adding that Syria is not like Egypt. He also emphasized that Syria was not susceptible to sliding into a similar situation, because it was in the “resistance” front and belongs to the anti-American, anti-Israeli axis.

Well, Assad is right. The situation in Syria is indeed different. The Syrian regime is more like Saddam’s defunct regime. The Ba’ath Party that ruled Iraq and the one still ruling Syria both held aloft flags of pan-Arab national ideology. But slogans are one thing and reality is another. All the ideological sweet talk was only talk. For the Ba’ath Party, both in Iraq and in Syria, constituted a political platform to perpetuate tribal, ethnic oppression.

Indeed, the situation in Egypt is completely different. If we put aside the Coptic minority, then Egyptian society is homogenous religiously and not tribal at all. The demoted Egyptian president, Mubarak, never had a tribal-ethnic crutch to lean on. The Egyptian army is also different and not at all like the Syrian or Iraqi armies.

For example, when the United States invaded Iraq, the Iraqi army splintered into its tribal and ethnic fragments. The soldiers took off their uniforms and each joined his tribe and ethnic community. Saddam too adhered to those tribal codes. He did not flee Iraq but went to hide in the well-protected areas of his tribesmen. This is what happens in these societies. In the land of the cedars, as soon as the civil war broke out, the Lebanese army dissolved into its ethnic components and disappeared.

True, Syria is not Egypt. Syria is also different in terms of the price in blood inflicted by the tyrannical Syrian regime. The Syrian tribal government is based on the force exercised by the security branches ruled by the tribesmen and their interested allies.

Inherently, a tribal regime of this kind will always be seen as a foreign reign. This kind of reign can be called tribal imperialism, which rules by operating brutal terror and oppression. This is underscored when a minority tribe rules, like in Syria. Thus every undermining of the government is seen as a challenge to the tribal hegemony and a danger to the ruling tribe’s survival. Such a regime by its very nature is totally immersed in a bloodbath.

Both Assad senior and Assad junior advocated resistance against Israel. This slogan was hollow, serving the regime merely as an insurance policy against any demand for freedom and democracy. The Syrian “resistance” government has not uttered a peep on the Golan front since 1973. Instead, the “resistance” regime was and still is ready to fight Israel to the last Lebanese, and if that doesn’t do the trick - then to the last Palestinian.

As voices in Israel have recently spoken out in favor of Hamas’ continued rule in Gaza, so many Israelis are worried these days over the Syrian regime’s welfare. Astonishingly, not only Jews are praying secretly for the Damascus regime’s survival, but many in the Arab parties as well. These parties’ leaders have been dumbstruck, their voices have been muted and no outcry has been raised against the Syrian regime’s massacre of civilians.

All the hypocrites, Jews and Arabs alike, have united. It seems Assad has wall-to-wall support here, as though he were king of Israel.

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Fri, 28 Sep 2012 15:55:55 -0400

theonion: New, Lighter iPhone Hailed By Exhausted, Humpbacked...

Sun, 23 Sep 2012 01:46:37 -0400

theonion:

New, Lighter iPhone Hailed By Exhausted, Humpbacked iPhone 4 Users

mashallahblog: Visit Palestine, by ZAN studio in...

Sun, 23 Sep 2012 01:38:02 -0400

mashallahblog:

Visit Palestine, by ZAN studio in Ramallah.

Imagining Apartheid Project.

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Sun, 23 Sep 2012 01:37:15 -0400

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Sun, 23 Sep 2012 01:36:56 -0400

leaveobashar: Sad that it takes a US news organization to point...

Sat, 22 Sep 2012 01:05:33 -0400

leaveobashar:

Sad that it takes a US news organization to point this out …

Thanks @Nora0315

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Sat, 22 Sep 2012 01:02:14 -0400

A Letter from a Palestinian Refugee to a Syrian Refugee

Tue, 04 Sep 2012 22:02:35 -0400

A Letter from a Palestinian Refugee to a Syrian Refugee :

leaveobashar:

By Ibrahim Jaber Ibrahim

The tent will be upsetting on the first night… and then in the first year, and then it will become friendly like a member of the family, but don’t fall in love with it like we did.

Don’t rejoice if they ever build you a health center or an elementary school, that’s not good news at all! Never get involved by asking for stupid demands like building small homes instead of the tents or having water pipes and electricity lines; this means that you’re starting to adapt… and this is death for a refugee… and this is his tomb.

Don’t train your kids to have patience, patience is the plot of the weak, and the plea of the abandoned and a refugee dies if he doesn’t look behind him twice at moments.

You’re not the son of ”there”, always remember this, you have a favor ”here” that can’t be betrayed, never sleep without listing its advantages to your kids, and tell them how your people died, and how they were slaughtered on TV channels because they didn’t clap after the speech. Tell them that you sleep between foreign trees, because you never wished to be bitten by one ”Assad” twice!

People will sell you to each other, that’s how politicians are, solidarity groups will come to you from all countries, you’ll become their electoral slogans.

They’ll use you when they’re seeking God, and people will work hard to visit you in Ramadan and Eids and religious events! Some will take photos of your tired and starving children and your wife who’s sleeping in order to be the subject of an award winning picture!

You’ll learn new languages and new feelings, and soon you’ll have an obscure relationship with exile, and one deceiving night you’ll feel it doesn’t anything more for it to be home, but soon you’ll notice: The trees here don’t grow green like they should, the salt isn’t salty, and people who passed away won’t forgive me, and then you look behind you twice!

Here is when your son - who has grown to be a man without you noticing - approaches to convey the memory and the dream that had killed your back.

Maybe, my friend, it will seem complicated in the beginning, but it’s obvious: You’re ”there” because ”here” is seedy, and maybe your absence will last longer than two days, but you’re not in a trip to seek a new identity, and you’ll never think about providing an electricity line to tent.

This is our mistake, when we said: The tent is too small and we need two extra tents!

Listen to me, I have a 63 years more experience in this ”job” than you: Don’t take pictures with Goodwill Ambassadors, don’t complain about how hot it is, or that the loaves of bread have pebbles to them.

And be careful not to ask for a better tent, as there is no tent better than another.

Original by Ibrahim Jaber Ibrahim

Translated by Menna Alaa

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Tue, 04 Sep 2012 20:15:15 -0400

WALK FOR THE CHILDREN OF SYRIA

Tue, 04 Sep 2012 19:59:26 -0400

Join us for a “Walk for the Children of Syria” on September 8, 2012. The walk will be a nationwide event to raise awareness about the humanitarian catastrophe in Syria and generate vital funds for children suffering under the dictatorship of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad. His regime has launched a brutal crackdown for 16 months to suppress an uprising for freedom, dignity and democracy.

http://walk4childrenofsyria.org/