Rocket Rattling!

“You wanted open warfare, so we are going for open warfare and we are ready for it, a war on all levels, that will reach Haifa and, believe me, beyond Haifda and beyond beyond Haifa. We will not be the only ones that will pay the price, nor will our homes be the only ones that will get destroyed, nor our children the only ones that will get killed, nor our people the only ones that will get expelled. That time is over. That time was before 1982 and before 2000. That time is over. I promise you that that time is over. Consequently, you, too, should bear the responsibility for what your government has done and it has accomplished. From now on, [and since] you wanted open warfare, let it be an open warfare then.” Continue reading “Rocket Rattling!” →

The Quandary!

Ahmadinejad of Iran is with us because a certain large percentage of the Iranian population thought he can create jobs ad improve their livelihood.

The Syrian people had hopes in Bashar, because they, too, believed he can improve their living conditions. Rights were not the main thing on their minds.

Indeed, and in such desperate economic times, people across our haggard region seem willing to err again and again by backing existing regimes, for all their dismal human rights records and all their corrupt practices and authoritarian predilections, so long as these regimes seem to represent the more viable promise of a better future in the economic sense. Continue reading “The Quandary!” →

The Making of Armageddon!

The Jordanian authorities are still moving adamantly with their case against Hamas and the Syrian regime. The recent televised confessions of a Hamas suspect may seem like a page out of an old and worn out book, but it does betray a serious commitment to taking this matter to its logical conclusion: a confrontation with the Assad regime. When the Jordanian monarch warned against the rise of the Shia crescent, he was not mincing words or sound-bites. Rather, he was speaking as a true believer in the ultimate necessity of seeing this unholy crescent collapse and fall apart. He is a Hashemite after all. Continue reading →

Free Ali! Free Alaa! Free Ramin! Free Fateh! Free US All!

And the list goes on. It’s pretty depressing really. The backlash against civil rights activists in the region seems to be in full force these days. Why is it a backlash? Because I believe it is closely connected to the US continuing troubles in Iraq and to the fact the Bush’s second term in office is drawing to an end. The regimes are taking a defiant stand in resonance with Ahmadinejad’s own stands. Continue reading →