The Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadenijad met with Brazilian head of state Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brasilia on Monday as the two leaders were poised to sign new agreements boosting trade and cooperation and securing Iran’s burgeoning status within the region. The two nations are expected to sign accords on biotechnology, farming and energy, and may discuss co-operation on the construction of nuclear power facilities. Tehran hopes these agreements can boost bilateral trade between the two nations from $2 billion to $15 billion annually¹.

In addition to signing trade deals with the Iranian head of state, Lula reiterated his support for Iran’s nuclear program, saying, “Brazil has a model of nuclear energy development recognised by the United Nations and we know about the controversy surrounding the same development by Iran. Brazil defends Iran’s right to develop uranium for peaceful purposes, just as Brasil has been doing. It is simple. That which we defend for ourselves, we defend for others.”²

Such reciprocity when it comes to Iran’s nuclear program is unlikely to sit well with Washington or Tel Aviv, both of which have been categorical in their opposition to Tehran’s desire to pursue a policy of uranium enrichment, claiming that Iran intends to develop nuclear weapons. Iran denies outright that it intends to develop nuclear armanents. The United States has the world’s largest nuclear arsenal and Israel is the only country in the Middle East with nuclear weapons, although it allows no international inspection of its nuclear facilities and has never publicly acknowledged possessing such arms.

Israel has repeatedly threatened to attack Iran, citing fears that the Persian state is attempting to acquire nuclear weapons behind closed doors. In early November 2009 Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon stated on Sky News that Israel is “not bluffing” in it’s threats to “take military action” against what he called “Iran’s contentious nuclear program”³. Ahmadinejad has frequently been misquoted with regards to statements he has made about Israel, with the most notorious example being the wide circulation of reports he had called for the Zionist state to be “wiped off the map” in October 2005. The Iranian President had in fact quoted the late Ayatollah Khomeini, with an accurate translation of his words being, “The Imam said this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time”⁴. Mainstream news outlets immediately reported a skewed translation of Ahmadinejad’s words which has served as evidence of the Iranian President’s desire to attack Israel ever since, with The New York Times and other sources stating that, “Iran’s conservative new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said Wednesday that Israel must be “wiped off the map””.⁵

In July of 2008, Pullitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh reported that at a meeting he attended in then-Vice President Dick Cheney’s office, the use of false flag operations to provoke a war with Iran was discussed in Cheney’s presence. Hersh reported, “There was a dozen ideas proffered about how to trigger a war. The one that interested me the most was why don’t we build — we in our shipyard — build four or five boats that look like Iranian PT boats. Put Navy seals on them with a lot of arms. And next time one of our boats goes to the Straits of Hormuz, start a shoot-up.” Hersh says the idea was eventually rejected “because you can’t have Americans killing Americans”⁶.

As Mahmoud Ahmadinejad met with Lula in the Brazilian capital, protests were held in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo in what The Guardian labelled a denunciation of the Iranian President’s “record on human rights, homosexuality and Israel”. The Iranian government severely cracked down on domestic dissent this summer and outlawed protests as riots erupted in Tehran following Ahmadinejad’s disputed election victory. Ahmadinejad, who enjoys widespread support among Iran’s poor, has repeatedly accused the U.S. and Britain of meddling in Iran’s internal affairs.

In October, the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard General Mohammad Ali Jafari accused British and American intelligence services of involvement in a suicide bombing targeted against the Revolutionary Guard leadership which killed 42. General Jafari claimed that his security officials had documents linking Britain and the United States to Jundullah, the militant group which claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing on Sunday⁷. “Behind this scene are the American and British intelligence apparatus, and there will have to be retaliatory measures to punish them”, said Jafari.

Such suspicions are certainly not without historical precedent. In 1952, following a unanimous vote in the Iranian parliament to nationalise the country’s vast oil reserves under President Mohammed Mossadeq, British intelligence (S.I.S.) launched a covert operation with the C.I.A in order to topple him and protect the interests of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company – now BP. British and American intelligence services staged bombings in Iran targeted against religious leaders which were then blamed on Iranian agents posing as Communists loyal to Mossadeq in an ultimately successful bid to turn the country’s religious establishment against the government⁸. Mossadeq was then replaced by the Shah whose brutal regime ruled with an iron fist before being deposed by the Islamic Revolution in 1979.

Despite stating publicly that he wishes to “extend a hand” to Iran, in March U.S. President Barack Obama renewed sanctions against the Persian state which have been in place since 1995, when they were introduced by the administration of Bill Clinton. These sanctions prohibit American companies from investing in or trading with Iran. Obama defended this policy of isolation, stating that, “The actions and policies of the government of Iran are contrary to the interests of the United States in the region and pose a continuing and unusual and extraordinary threat”⁹.

Ahmadinejad was in Brazil on the first leg of a tour which the Iranian government hopes will strengthen the Persian state’s standing in a continent where it has numerous allies in the form of left-wing governments in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua. The Iranian President will subsequently make visits to Caracas and La Paz, where he will meet with Hugo Chávez and Evo Morales respectively, both of whom have also voiced support for Iran’s right to develop nuclear technology for non-military purposes. Iran has been making steady diplomatic inroads into Latin America in recent years, provoking concern in Washington, which has traditionally regarded the region as its “backyard”.

Tom Kavanagh

A few years ago I was talking to Dave Hirsh, of ‘Engage’, the left-wing campaign and web-site against anti-semitism. Dave was limbering up for a debate against the anti-Israeli academic Illan Pappe (who Dave wiped the floor with, by the way) and I came along to offer moral support and to intervene from the floor. In the course of our convesation I said something like, “of course there are some people who will accuse anyone who criticises Israel of anti-semitism.” Dave immediately asked me, “Who?; when was the last time you heard anyone denounce criticism of Israel as anti-semitism?” I had to admit that I never had – but everyone I knew said they had, so I assumed that I had simply led a sheltered life.

I began pondering Dave’s point and realised that legitimate, political criticism of Israel (as opposed to crazed conspiracy theories and calls for the total destruction of the state of Israel) is not denounced as anti-semitism by any serious people, left right or centre. And yet it has become a trusim – an article of faith almost - on much of the “left” that it is. I myself used to habitually preface speeches at the trades council and in the Labour Party on the subject, with some sort of disclaimer like “I’m not one of those people who thinks any criticism of Israel is anti-semitic.” But, as Dave pointed out: who are “those people”? Do they actually exist? Or are they a sort of anti-Zionist’s urban myth?

Similarly, British and European people who criticise Israel are frequently described as being “brave.” What form does this “bravery” take? What threat are they under? What dangerous and unpopular arguments are they putting forward?  This has never been satisfactorily explained to me.

I was reminded of all this when I read the following by Peter Wilby (a commentator I am fast taking a dislike to) in the current New Statesman:

“The Israeli lobby

“The journalist Peter Oborne is a brave man. The inevitable accusations of anti-Semitism are already flying around after his Channel 4 programme on Britain’s pro-Israel lobby. Given 20th-century history, anti-Semitism is just about the most damaging epithet that can be used against anybody, far more so than Islamophobia, and Isreal’s defenders rarely hesitate to use it, even against critics who are Jewish.”

Wilby goes on the rehash the tired and vacuous cliche that some anti-semites have, historically, supported the creation of the state of Israel.

But what I want to know from Wilby (and I sent a comment to the NS website asking this, but when I last checked it hadn’t been published) , is who, precisely, has made these “inevitable” claims against Oborne and his programme (which, like the Guardian piece accompanying it clearly stated, by the way,  that “there is no conspiracy, and nothing resembling a conspiracy”)?

I’ve been checking responses to Oborne’s programme, and his Guardian piece, especially checking pro-Israel publications and websites, and vigilant campaigners against anti-semitism (not always the same thing, by the way): I have come across plenty of criticism of Oborne’s programme and article – but not one single allegation of anti-semitism. No doubt some ultra-Zionist nutter has made such an accusation, somewhere. But most of the Zionist and Israel-defensist reaction has been along the lines of David Cesarani in the Graun’s Comment Is Free:

“So what is Oborne’s beef about pro-Israeli activists? First, he complains that they operate semi-covertly. Although he disavows any imputation of a conspiracy, that is what his charge amounts to. But the same can be said about Michael Ashcroft, Rupert Murdoch, the arms industry, the Saudi Arabians, and the list can go on.”

Cesarani also makes the point that although few – if any - have accused Oborne of anti-semitism, plenty have seized upon his programme and article to make outrageous conspiritorial accusations about sinister ”Israeli” (sic) and ”Zionist” (sic) influence: just look at the comments on Channel 4’s website and the Graun’s ‘Comment Is Free.”

So, Mr Wilby: where, exactly, are these “inevitable” accusations of “Anti-semitism”? Or could they just be a myth perpetuated by smug, lazy, unthinking “anti-Zionist” commentators like yourself?

Common Dreams,  November 16, 2009

Biggest State Party to Obama: Get Out of Afghanistan

By Norman Soloman

This week begins with a significant new straw in the political wind for President Obama to consider. The California Democratic Party has just sent him a formal and clear message: Stop making war in Afghanistan.

Overwhelmingly approved on Sunday by the California Democratic Party’s 300-member statewide executive board, the resolution is titled “End the U.S. Occupation and Air War in Afghanistan.”

The resolution supports “a timetable for withdrawal of our military personnel” and calls for “an end to the use of mercenary contractors as well as an end to air strikes that cause heavy civilian casualties.” Advocating multiparty talks inside Afghanistan, the resolution also urges Obama “to oversee a redirection of our funding and resources to include an increase in humanitarian and developmental aid.”

While Obama weighs Afghanistan policy options, the California Democratic Party’s adoption of the resolution is the most tangible indicator yet that escalation of the U.S. war effort can only fuel opposition within the president’s own party — opposition that has already begun to erode his political base.

Participating in a long-haul struggle for progressive principles inside the party, I co-authored the resolution with savvy longtime activists Karen Bernal of Sacramento and Marcy Winograd of Los Angeles.

Bernal, the chair of the state party’s Progressive Caucus, said on Sunday night: “Today’s vote formalized and amplified what had been, up to now, an unspoken but profoundly understood reality — that there is no military solution in Afghanistan. What’s more, the vote signified an acceptance of what is sure to be a continued and growing culture of resistance to current administration policies on the matter within the party. This is absolutely huge. Now, there can be no disputing the fact that the overwhelming majority of California Democrats are not only saying no to escalation, but no to our continued military presence in Afghanistan, period. The California Democratic Party has spoken, and we want the rest of the country to know.”

Winograd, who is running hard as a grassroots candidate in a primary race against pro-war incumbent Rep. Jane Harman, had this to say: “We need progressives in every state Democratic Party to pass a similar resolution calling for an end to the U.S. occupation and air war in Afghanistan. Bring the veterans to the table, bring our young into the room, and demand an end to this occupation that only destabilizes the region. There is no military solution, only a diplomatic one that requires we cease our role as occupiers if we want our voices to be heard. Yes, this is about Afghanistan — but it’s also about our role in the world at large. Do we want to be global occupiers seizing scarce resources or global partners in shared prosperity? I would argue a partnership is not only the humane choice, but also the choice that grants us the greatest security.”

Speaking to the resolutions committee of the state party on Saturday, former Marine Corporal Rick Reyes movingly described his experiences as a warrior in Afghanistan that led him to question and then oppose what he now considers to be an illegitimate U.S. occupation of that country.

Another voice of disillusionment reached party delegates when Bernal distributed a copy of the recent resignation letter from senior U.S. diplomat Matthew Hoh, sent after five months of work on the ground in Afghanistan. “I find specious the reasons we ask for bloodshed and sacrifice from our young men and women in Afghanistan,” he wrote. “If honest, our stated strategy of securing Afghanistan to prevent al-Qaeda resurgence or regrouping would require us to additionally invade and occupy western Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, etc. Our presence in Afghanistan has only increased destabilization and insurgency in Pakistan where we rightly fear a toppled or weakened Pakistani government may lose control of its nuclear weapons.”

Hoh’s letter added that “I do not believe any military force has ever been tasked with such a complex, opaque and Sisyphean mission as the U.S. military has received in Afghanistan.” And he wrote: “Thousands of our men and women have returned home with physical and mental wounds, some that will never heal or will only worsen with time. The dead return only in bodily form to be received by families who must be reassured their dead have sacrificed for a purpose worthy of futures lost, love vanished, and promised dreams unkept. I have lost confidence such assurances can anymore be made.”

From their own vantage points, many of the California Democratic Party leaders who voted to approve the out-of-Afghanistan resolution on Nov. 15 have gone through a similar process. They’ve come to see the touted reasons for the U.S. war effort as specious, the mission as Sisyphean and the consequences as profoundly unacceptable.

Sometime in the next few days, President Obama is likely to learn that the California Democratic Party has approved an official resolution titled “End the U.S. Occupation and Air War in Afghanistan.” But will he really get the message?

Norman Solomon is a journalist, historian, and progressive activist. His book War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death has been adapted into a documentary film of the same name. His most recent book is “Made Love, Got War. ” He is a national co-chair of the Healthcare NOT Warfare campaign. In California, he is co-chair of the Commission on a Green New Deal for the North Bay; www.GreenNewDeal.info .

The Electronic Intifada, November 10, 2009

Israeli Jews and the one-state solution

Anyone who rejects the two-state solution, won’t bring a one-state solution. They will instead bring one war, not one state. A bloody war with no end. — Israeli President Shimon Peres, 7 November 2009.

One of the most commonly voiced objections to a one-state solution for Palestine/Israel stems from the accurate observation that the vast majority of Israeli Jews reject it, and fear being “swamped” by a Palestinian majority. Across the political spectrum, Israeli Jews insist on maintaining a separate Jewish-majority state.

But with the total collapse of the Obama Administration’s peace efforts, and relentless Israeli colonization of the occupied West Bank, the reality is dawning rapidly that the two-state solution is no more than a slogan that has no chance of being implemented or altering the reality of a de facto binational state in Palestine/Israel.

This places an obligation on all who care about the future of Palestine/Israel to seriously consider the democratic alternatives. I have long argued that the systems in post-apartheid South Africa (a unitary democratic state), and Northern Ireland (consociational democracy) — offer hopeful, real-life models.

But does solid Israeli Jewish opposition to a one-state solution mean that a peaceful one-state outcome is so unlikely that Palestinians should not pursue it, and should instead focus only on “pragmatic” solutions that would be less fiercely resisted by Israeli Jews?

The experience in South Africa suggests otherwise. In 1994, white-minority rule — apartheid — came to a peaceful, negotiated end, and was replaced (after a transitional period of power-sharing) with a unitary democratic state with a one person, one vote system. Before this happened, how likely did this outcome look? Was there any significant constituency of whites prepared to contemplate it, and what if the African National Congress (ANC) had only advanced political solutions that whites told pollsters they would accept?

Until close to the end of apartheid, the vast majority of whites, including many of the system’s liberal critics, completely rejected a one person, one vote system, predicting that any attempt to impose it would lead to a bloodbath. As late as 1989, F.W. de Klerk, South Africa’s last apartheid president, described a one person, one vote system as the “death knell” for South Africa.

A 1988 study by political scientist Pierre Hugo documented the widespread fears among South African whites that a transition to majority rule would entail not only a loss of political power and socioeconomic status, but engendered “physical dread” and fear of “violence, total collapse, expulsion and flight.” Successive surveys showed that four out of five whites thought that majority rule would threaten their “physical safety.” Such fears were frequently heightened by common racist tropes of inherently savage and violent Africans, but the departure of more than a million white colons from Algeria and the airlifting of 300,000 whites from Angola during decolonization set terrifying precedents (“Towards darkness and death: racial demonology in South Africa,” The Journal of Modern African Studies, 26(4), 1988).

Throughout the 1980s, polls showed that even as whites increasingly understood that apartheid could not last, only a small minority ever supported majority rule and a one person, one vote system. In a March 1986 survey, for example, 47 percent of whites said they would favor some form of “mixed-race” government, but 83 percent said they would opt for continued white domination of the government if they had the choice (Peter Goodspeed, “Afrikaners cling to their all-white dream,” The Toronto Star, 5 October 1986).

A 1990 nationwide survey of Afrikaner whites (native speakers of Afrikaans, as opposed to English, and who traditionally formed the backbone of the apartheid state), found just 2.2 percent were willing to accept a “universal franchise with majority rule” (Kate Manzo and Pat McGowan, “Afrikaner fears and the politics of despair: Understanding change in South Africa,” International Studies Quarterly, 36, 1992).

Perhaps an enlightened white elite was able to lead the white masses to higher ground? This was not the case either. A 1988 academic survey of more than 400 white politicians, business and media leaders, top civil servants, academics and clergy found that just 4.8 percent were prepared to accept a unitary state with a universal voting franchise and two-thirds considered such an outcome “unacceptable.” According to Manzo and McGowan, white elites reflected the sentiments and biases of the rest of the society and overwhelmingly considered whites inherently more civilized and culturally superior to black Africans. Just more than half of prominent whites were prepared to accept “a federal state in which power is shared between white and non-white groups and areas so that no one group dominates.”

During the 1980s, the white electorate in South Africa moved to the right, as Israel’s Jewish electorate is doing today. Support seeped from the National Party, which had established formal apartheid in 1948, to the even more extreme Conservative Party. Yet, “on the issue of majority rule,” Hugo observed, “supporters of the National Party and the Conservative Party, as well as most white voters to the ‘left’ of these organizations, ha[d] little quarrel with each other.”

The vast majority of whites, wracked with existential fears, were simply unable to contemplate relinquishing effective control, or at least a veto, over political decision-making in South Africa.

Yet, the African National Congress insisted firmly on a one person, one vote system with no white veto. As the township protests and strikes and international pressure mounted, The Economist observed in an extensive 1986 survey of South Africa published on 1 February of that year, that many “enlightened” whites “still fondly argue that a dramatic improvement in the quality of black life may take the revolutionary sting out of the black townships — and persuade ‘responsible’ blacks, led by the emergent black middle class, to accept some power-sharing formula.”

Schemes to stabilize the apartheid system abounded, and bear a strong resemblance to the current Israeli government’s vision of “economic peace” in which a collaborationist Palestinian Authority leadership would manage a still-subjugated Palestinian population anesthetized by consumer goods and shopping malls.

Because of the staunch opposition of whites to a unitary democratic state, the ANC heard no shortage of advice from western liberals that it should seek a “realistic” political accommodation with the apartheid regime, and that no amount of pressure could force whites to succumb to the ANC’s political demands. The ANC was warned that insistence on majority rule would force Afrikaners into the “laager” — they would retreat into a militarized garrison state and siege economy, preferring death before surrender.

Even the late Helen Suzman, one of apartheid’s fiercest liberal critics, predicted in 1987, as quoted by Hugo, “The Zimbabwe conflict took 15 years … and cost 20,000 lives and I can assure you that the South African transfer of power will take a good deal more than that, both in time and I am afraid lives.”

But as The Economist observed, the view that whites would prefer “collective suicide” was something of a caricature. The vast majority of Afrikaners were “no longer bible-thumping boers.” They were “part of a spoilt, affluent suburban society, whose economic pain threshold may prove to be rather low.”

The Economist concluded that if whites would only come so far voluntarily, then it was perfectly reasonable for the anti-apartheid movement to bring them the rest of the way through “coercion” in the form of sanctions and other forms of pressure. “The quicker the white tribe submits,” the magazine wrote, “the better its chance of a bearable future in a black-ruled South Africa.”

Ultimately, as we now know, the combination of internal resistance and international isolation did force whites to abandon political apartheid and accept majority rule. However, it is important to note that the combined strength of the anti-apartheid movement never seriously threatened the physical integrity of the white regime.

Even after the massive township uprisings of 1985-86, the South African regime was secure. “So far there is no real physical threat to white power,” The Economist noted, “so far there is little threat to white lives. … The white state is mighty, and well-equipped. It has the capacity to repress the township revolts far more bloodily. The blacks have virtually no urban or rural guerrilla capacity, practically no guns, few safe havens within South Africa or without.”

This balance never changed, and a similar equation could be written today about the relative power of a massively-armed — and much more ruthless — Israeli state, and lightly armed Palestinian resistance factions.

What did change for South Africa, and what all the weapons in the world were not able to prevent, was the complete loss of legitimacy of the apartheid regime and its practices. Once this legitimacy was gone, whites lost the will to maintain a system that relied on repression and violence and rendered them international pariahs; they negotiated a way out and lived to tell the tale. It all happened much more quickly and with considerably less violence than even the most optimistic predictions of the time. But this outcome could not have been predicted based on what whites said they were willing to accept, and it would not have occurred had the ANC been guided by opinion polls rather than the democratic principles of the Freedom Charter.

Zionism — as many Israelis openly worry — is suffering a similar, terminal loss of legitimacy as Israel is ever more isolated as a result of its actions. Israel’s self-image as a liberal “Jewish and democratic state” is proving impossible to maintain against the reality of a militarized, ultra-nationalist Jewish sectarian settler-colony that must carry out frequent and escalating massacres of “enemy” civilians (Lebanon and Gaza 2006, Gaza 2009) in a losing effort to check the resistance of the region’s indigenous people. Zionism cannot bomb, kidnap, assassinate, expel, demolish, settle and lie its way to legitimacy and acceptance.

Already difficult to disguise, the loss of legitimacy becomes impossible to conceal once Palestinians are a demographic majority ruled by a Jewish minority. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s demand that Palestinians recognize Israel’s “right to exist as a Jewish state” is in effect an acknowledgement of failure: without Palestinian consent, something which is unlikely ever to be granted, the Zionist project of a Jewish ethnocracy in Palestine has grim long-term prospects.

Similarly, South African whites typically attempted to justify their opposition to democracy, not in terms of a desire to preserve their privilege and power, but using liberal arguments about protecting distinctive cultural differences. Hendrik Verwoerd Jr., the son of assassinated Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd, apartheid’s founder, expressed the problem in these terms in 1986, as reported by The Toronto Star, stating that, “These two people, the Afrikaner and the black, are not capable of becoming one nation. Our differences are unique, cultural and deep. The only way a man can be happy, can live in peace, is really when he is among his own people, when he shares cultural values.”

The younger Verwoerd was on the far-right of South African politics, leading a quixotic effort to carve out a whites-only homeland in the heart of South Africa. But his reasoning sounds remarkably similar to liberal Zionist defenses of the “two-state solution” today. The Economist clarified the use of such language at the time, stating that “One of the weirder products of apartheid is the crippling of language in a maw of hypocrisy, euphemism and sociologese. You talk about the Afrikaner ‘right to self-determination’ — meaning power over everybody else.”

Zionism’s claim for “Jewish self-determination” amidst an intermixed population, is in effect a demand to preserve and legitimize a status quo in which Israeli Jews exercise power in perpetuity. But there’s little reason to expect that Israeli Jews would abandon this quest voluntarily any more than South African whites did. As in South Africa, coercion is necessary — and the growing boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement is one of the most powerful, nonviolent, legitimate and proven tools of coercion that Palestinians possess. Israel’s vulnerabilities may be different from those of apartheid South Africa, but Israel is not invulnerable to pressure.

Coercion is not enough, however; as I have long argued, and sought to do, Palestinians must also put forward a positive vision. Neither can Palestinians advocating a one-state solution simply disregard the views of Israeli Jews. We must recognize that the opposition of Israeli Jews to any solution that threatens their power and privilege stems from at least two sources. One is irrational, racist fears of black and brown hordes (in this case, Arab Muslims) stoked by decades of colonial, racist demonization. The other source — certainly heightened by the former — are normal human concerns about personal and family dislocation, loss of socioeconomic status and community security: change is scary.

But change will come. Without indulging Israeli racism or preserving undue privilege, the legitimate concerns of ordinary Israeli Jews can be addressed directly in any negotiated transition to ensure that the shift to democracy is orderly, and essential redistributive policies are carried out fairly. Inevitably, decolonization will cause some pain as Israeli Jews lose power and privilege, but there are few reasons to believe it cannot be a well-managed process, or that the vast majority of Israeli Jews, like white South Africans, would not be prepared to make the adjustment for the sake of a normality and legitimacy they cannot have any other way.

This is where the wealth of research and real-life experience about the successes, failures, difficulties and opportunities of managing such transitions at the level of national and local politics, neighborhoods, schools and universities, workplaces, state institutions and policing, emerging from South Africa and Northern Ireland, will be of enormous value.

Every situation has unique features, and although there are patterns in history, it never repeats itself exactly. But what we can conclude from studying the pasts and presents of others is that Palestinians and Israelis are no less capable of writing themselves a post-colonial future that gives everyone a chance at a life worth living in a single, democratic state.

Co-founder of The Electronic Intifada, Ali Abunimah is author of One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse.

Jewish Voice for Peace comments:

Ali Abunimah is a prominent defender of a single democratic state in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. In this article he makes the now quite common – though also controversial – comparison with Apartheid South Africa. Usually the question this comparison raises is whether Israeli treatment of Palestinians is really analogous to or as bad as the Apartheid regime’s treatment of its black majority, and the comparison is often used to support the use of tactics of resistance like BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) modeled on the anti-Apartheid campaigns of the 1980s.  But Abunimah instead hones narrowly in on the hostility of the white minority in South Africa to a multi-racial democratic state, a hostility that persisted until surprisingly shortly before change was initiated. It is this that he compares, in a wealth of detail, with Jewish Israeli fears of a single state solution. If change could occur in South Africa in spite of such widespread rejection in the white community, why, Abuminah argues, should change not occur in Israel despite the fears of the Jewish community? It won’t happen, he recognizes without outside pressure (and he supports BDS); but current Jewish Israeli rejection need not make it impossible.

This is surely true, but ‘not necessarily impossible’ is very far from showing that a one-state solution ought to be the aspiration of activist movements, Palestinian, Jewish or otherwise. As his banner quotation from Shimon Peres – a barely veiled threat – makes clear, it remains quite possible that a one-state ‘solution’ will involve no diminution of violence towards or oppression of Palestinians. One state is, after all, what there is now. What might make it important to explore a one state possibility is the fact, clearly motivating Abunimah, that two viable states are now impossible. Certainly he is correct to say that there is presently no political will in the Israeli or US administrations to move in the direction of a viable Palestinian state and reasonable opinions can differ on whether the current ‘facts on the ground’ make it impossible to eke out such a state. But it is also surely true that activist pressure can be brought to bear both on that political
will and even on the facts on the ground and this pressure has a natural point of application in the official commitment of Israel, the US, the PA (and even Hamas) to two states. If change is possible, as Abunimah argues, on the one state solution, then it is certainly possible for two states. But if two states can be achieved, then this removes a big chunk of the motivation for directing one’s energies to one state. Indeed, aiming for two viable states in the medium term is not inconsistent with seeking to build consensus, along the lines Abunimah suggests, for single state in the long term.

The question is by no means an obvious one to resolve, but it is important to consider where activist energies are most likely to have an effect, and avoid directions that absorb energy with little hope of result. Indeed some commentators have suggested that the one state solution has become increasingly acceptable in the mainstream US  media precisely because it is so unlikely to come about that it represents – from the point of view of the status quo – a harmless safety valve through which to discharge otherwise potentially dangerous activist pressure.

Alistair Welchman

“9: Why do you listen to 1?
5: A group must have a leader.
9: But what if he’s wrong!
-5 looks down baffled with no answer-”

I was watching the animated movie “9″, which I quite enjoyed,  and those lines inspired me to write about a topic that has always interested me and at times even disturbed me. “Leadership”.

Let’s not get into the statement “A group must have a leader” because in my opinion that’s debatable, and I’m sure that any one of you out there who has the urge to constantly follow a (/any) leader, must have a million justifying reason but the fact remains that it’s a matter of personal preferences. However, I do agree that in certain situations, one person must lead in order to avoid chaos. My debate is on WHO would make a leader!

I live in the Middle East, occasionally in Lebanon (my home country), where the concept of leadership is often flubbed (☚ word of the day – flubbed: messed up, screwed up, destroyed, ruined, etc.). If you watch regional/international news (which I avoid with great passion), you must have heard of Lebanon and its many political dilemmas due to the many leaders and parties, each trying to take over and prove their alleged rightfulness. Now don’t take that as a statement that “we suck and you rock!”. I know every country has its problems, but I’m in no position to judge something I haven’t experienced firsthand (PREJUDICE IS BAD!).

Now let’s head to the source of the problem as to what makes a leader worthy of being a leader (before you think to yourself “oh this is going to be one of those boring theses”, it’s not! It’s going to be fun and you’ll get a treat at the end.).

According to the very general definitions you would find for “Leader” or “Leadership”, a leader is a person or thing (e.g.: an organization) that rules, guides, and inspires others. Well I don’t know about you, but to me that sounds pretty vague and subjective.

Let’s try to search for “Leadership attributes” for more accurate results:

Google search engine results: about 863,000 for leadership attributes. (0.36 seconds)

Good luck reading them all to know what would make a leader! Or you can just keep on reading and get an idea based on my perspective.

One result that I found a bit reliable is this right here:

The 11 critical attributes of leadership are listed below:

1. Unwavering Courage (in some cases, courage is inapplicable.)
2. Self-Control (you’d have to know the leader personally to be able to judge on this one)
3. A keen sense of justice (based on what law?!)
4. Definiteness of decision (what about the quality or rightness of the decision?!)
5. Definiteness of plans (What about commitment to execution?!)
6. The habit of doing more than paid for (Is there an extent to what he/she is being paid to do?!)
7. A pleasing personality (Even if it’s just an act?!)
8. Sympathy and understanding (Again, a close knowledge is necessary as so not to fall for stories)
9. Mastery of detail (one side-note: in Lebanon, we have ministers heading ministries totally irrelevant to their experience and background. Not much mastery of detail there! Like a car mechanic fixing a spaceship.)   
10. Willingness to assume full responsibility (So he/she is willing, but will he/she commit when $#!+ happens!?)
11. Cooperation (Is it really cooperation or an exclusive club of plotters?!)

Answer this in full honesty: Do you look into all of those attributes before committing yourself to a leader? (Yes? What? I can’t hear you!). It is surely hard to investigate and have certain proof of all those attributes, but don’t just simply follow a leader who looks impressive because he/she has many other followers. Don’t just blindly trust a leader and follow his actions with complete obedience without having an objective sense of reasoning. Leaders are human and thus bound to make mistakes at times even if they were supermen/superwomen (BTW Superman is dead, if you haven’t read so yet.)

Where am I going with this?

Be your own leader first. learn to have the above attributes and be the best you can be as a person. No one is better than you as a human (unless you are an evil villain), but some can outshine you with their actions. Thus, learn from their actions, imitate, modify and originate, but never just follow to be in the herd!

If you find yourself with an urge for a role model, investigate, question, and always reason. Don’t just trust what other followers are saying even if they were your best friends, or wife/husband, which brings me to my next point.

Have some guts and stand up for what is right. Don’t just stand up to what your leader thinks is right and don’t defend him/her when you know he/she is wrong. Just follow the leader’s singular actions, one at a time, rather than the leader himself/herself.

Conveniently and coincidently, I just came across this quote -watching the movie Zeitgeist, that was referred to me by a friend- that directly fits my point:

“They must find it difficult… those who have taken authority as the truth, rather than truth as the authority.

-          G. Massey, Egyptologist”

Now, this isn’t a conclusion, because I still want to hear from you as to who you consider as a leader/row model (in any industry, profession, age, dead or alive, etc.), and why or how he/she inspires you.

And don’t ask me whom I consider as a leader. That position is going to be vacant until I am proven wrong or I have better alternatives, because no matter what the case is, NEVER appoint a leader by default!

P.S.: As for the treat, I consider knowledge to be the biggest treat. If you don’t agree then you shouldn’t have been here on the first place =), but you’re still welcomed.

In his new book, Negotiating with Iran: Wrestling with the Ghosts of History, Ambassador John Limbert examined four case studies of United States-Iran negotiations to see what can be learned from them. Limbert joined the Council last Monday to present his findings and explained that any negotiations entered into by the United States with Iran must deal with two realities: the need for realistic expectations and the need for high expectations. He cited former Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker’s belief that negotiations will always be harder, take longer, and that, no matter how well they might seem to be going, someone will always come along and mess it up. Limbert said that if this is true in Iraq, “it is doubly true in Iran.” Limbert believes a primary goal should be to begin negotiations with Iran, whether we like its government or not, because there are countless issues to discuss. Referring to the subtitle of his book, “Wrestling with the Ghosts of History,” he said he hopes he can be a ”ghost-buster” of sorts and clear away the ghosts of the past so we can move forward in the near future. A former hostage himself, held at the US Embassy in Tehran in 1979, Ambassador Limbert has recently been appointed Deputy Assistant Secretary for Iran in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs at the Department of State.

The entire program can be heard on our online audio archive here.

PPI is approaching its fifth year changing perceptions in the Middle East.

From the Field will offer you new updates Monday through Friday each week. But what if that doesn’t satisfy your PPI cravings? Well, there’s Facebook, Change.org, and Twitter, but there will always be some overlap between those and our current home  here on From the Field. For something really different? Check out the former PPI – ME blog, available right here.

Started in 2006 by some of our employees in the Middle East, the former PPI – ME blog has over 100 posts from PPI days of old. So take some time and surf around, and see how we got to where we are today.

Special thanks to all our former staffers who contributed to the front- and back-end of that blog over the years. They’re the real inspiration for From the Field today.

Deep valleys and steep mountains lay before and behind us – and we zoom around the curves, gripping the sides of the bed of the truck for dear life. I find it difficult to light my cigarette in this wind, but I prevail with a little help from my friends. Mohammed, an army officer and friend of our driver joins us in the back. I keep staring at the door of the bed, wondering how tightly secured it is, and how long Mohammed would tumble down the mountainside before coming to his final resting place. Thankfully this leg of the trip was without incident, save for Mohammed’s questioning as to why I’d allow my wife to so bluntly engage in conversation with such a strange man like himself. “She’s very independent. She has her freedom.”

The camel of modernity

We went to a castle, and it was really old. I feel jaded. I’m saddened to say that the sense of wonder that once welled up inside my chest upon facing an ancient site no longer wells, but remains placid and deep inside me. So, the castle was old. I hardly took any pictures of the site itself, but instead tried (failingly) to capture the magnificent view from atop the mountain. I positioned myself in a watchtower and tried to imagine defending the castle as invaders scrambled up the hill, but even this musing failed to stoke my passion. Instead the thoughts of violence intensified the suns rays upon my frail face, and I was ready to get back into the truck.

We walked down the hill since our modern camel had busted-ass brakes

We were dropped off at the top of an incredibly steep descent because the brakes on the truck had since worn out. We left our bags in the truck, but I was sure to grab my wallet. Freed from the weight, we skipped down the road, heading to Little Petra, an overlooked and free destination. We take the less beaten path, obviously.

We had tea. For like two hours. For some reason we stalled right before entering the ancient site. Maybe we were exhausted from the days of hiking. We certainly did not feel in a rush, having skipped a day or two of walking by taking the truck ride. And thank God. That walk would have been stunning for twenty minutes, and then monotonous and draining. While we sipped our tea and chatted amongst ourselves, Sarah hung out with the artisans and gained insight into the educational system here. She got free gifts.

A small sample of Little Petra

We entered Little Petra and checked out the sights. Probably the strangest thing I saw was a woman on horseback with a cameraman following her. Apparently she’s the host of a PBS series whereby viewers catch glimpses of world heritage from a unique perspective, that being horseback. A curious twist to lure viewers to a show, sure, but to me it seems a bit gratuitous. Like walking the Appalachian Trail, but barefoot. Or climbing Everest with a team who color-coordinates their outfits based on the moon cycle.

My spacious dream of a campsite, the veritable goat toilet, is nestled in the nook behind the tree

We hiked into the open desert and checked out perspective places to camp. I was obsessed with one locale nudged into a cliff. The area was flat and soft, elevated above the desert below us. No awkward stones to rearrange to ensure a nice sleeping surface. Stone walls towered above and behind us, protecting us from the wind. I could imagine the flickering flames of our campfire casting fables upon our stone fortress, but some of our group had other ideas. “It’s a veritable goat toilet!” So what if the softness on the ground is organic? I thought. The smell was almost pleasant, reminiscent of the agricultural heritage of Montana, where I had spent the previous summer. But it was a deal-breaker for some, as well as the sandy area down below my imagined castle, which was described as a “goat cemetery.” I didn’t like the bones either, so we moved on.

Looking out from our stellar camp site

Regardless, we found a lovely place to camp, set up our tents, and some of us headed out for a hike and to collect firewood while the others would get a fire started and begin our dinner.

In this picture I have no breath because 1. it was taken away and 2. I am smoking

A melting palette dripped into valleys, onto mountainsides, and over the Dead Sea beyond. The castle earlier that day may have failed to rile me, but this sunset tapped into something. I saw the mountains before me swell and sink as the earth shifted and the sands carved over thousands of years. Time seemed stuck in a fast-forward loop, creation and destruction and resurrection flashing before me, somehow, despite the static image perceived by my eyes. Judith led a yoga session – we laid our legs out before us; I didn’t so much stretch as I was pulled by the sun to the west. Four of us shared breaths, rhythmically loosening our muscles and our ego’s grip on the reality that lay before and behind us.

Pull

Stretch

On our walk back, I mindfully collected sticks from the ground and plucked dead branches off scraggly trees gripping the rocky soil, painfully aware of my impact as a human being on the splendor that surrounds, of the wood I would soon incinerate so that I may have couscous.

And couscous we had. And ramen and canned beans. And it was swell. With full bellies we giggled and theorized and told around the fire I tenderly nurtured, scorching my eyebrows now and again to breathe in new life. I marveled at a purity in this temporal community: our guards down, our distractions minimized; partaking in food and sharing freely hugged by the warmth of the fire and guarded by the glimmer of the stars from the pristine night sky above. Hours passed like minutes until we tossed our whole stockpile of wood onto the fire for one blaring last hurrah. I reluctantly breathed in the bittersweet scent, and crawled into my Coleman cocoon. The end of the night. The last night of the trip. The next day we’d return to the bustle of Amman and our city lives where we played out the drama of the naïve idealists blessed with a year to explore to their heart’s content. Internet and televisions and appointments and obligations. And showers.

Pamela Clark-DicksonPamela Clark-Dickson is a principal analyst at Informa Telecoms & Media.

Google’s wake-up call: We don’t have SMS advertising capability November 23, 2009 Written by Pamela Clark-Dickson.

The mobile industry is buzzing about Internet giant Google’s proposed $750m, all-stock acquisition of mobile advertising network AdMob, which was announced November 9. It is a huge deal, and seemingly an acknowledgement by Google that it has not been able to sufficiently develop its own mobile advertising capabilities internally, even though it has been offering mobile display search advertisements for some time.

Given that rivals Microsoft, AOL and Yahoo all snapped up mobile advertising networks two years ago – Screen Tonic, Third Screen Media and Actionality respectively – it would seem that Google has come a little late to the party. And perhaps its lateness to the market has cost it dearly. The privately-owned, venture-capital-backed AdMob has gone from being a start-up in 2006, to become a leading provider of mobile web display and application display advertising, with an ad serving network that spans 160 countries. According to its latest Mobile Metrics report, AdMob served 10.2 billion advertisements in September 2009 across its footprint. In 64 countries, the company served more than 10 million ads, and in 14 countries, it served more than 100 million ads. That is pretty impressive.

There is no doubt that AdMob has a lot to offer Google: in addition to its extensive network of advertisers and publishers, the company is able to provide its customers with comprehensive data about their mobile advertising campaigns, which it then also anonymizes and aggregates in order to publish a monthly report on its web site. This is the kind of data that the industry desperately needs if mobile advertising is ever to go mainstream.

Still, I am staggered by the sum that Google was prepared to pay to acquire AdMob, especially since as recently as January 2009, AdMob was seeking venture capital investment. The January 2009 round totaled US$12.5 million and in all, AdMob had received $47.2m since inception – or at least, the company had publicly disclosed that it had received that amount of funding. Also, Google itself says, in its FAQ with respect to the deal and regulatory approval: “Currently we do not believe this purchase requires regulatory review outside the United States. AdMob’s business simply is too small.” It’s a somewhat arrogant statement by Google, which also seems to contradict the price that the Internet giant was willing to pay to secure AdMob.

Under the circumstances, it almost goes without saying that AdMob CEO Omar Hamoui is an astute businessman; clearly he is also a skilled negotiator who knows what his company is worth and is not prepared to accept anything less than top dollar, as it were. Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt has reportedly said that the company will buy back $750m in stock once the AdMob acquisition is completed, in order to avoid share dilution. This reportedly first-time share buy-back for Google comes less than a month after Schmidt’s statement in the company’s 3Q09 quarterly earnings call that the company would not ever consider a share buy-back.

AdMob’s investors Sequoia Capital, Accel, Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Northgate Capital must be kicking themselves at this point; they will have made back their meager-looking investments, but nothing else, unless they also agreed some kind of exit deal with AdMob that gave them a share of the profits (or stock in this case) from the sale of the company to Google.

“Yoo-hoo! Over here,” says Google

What is also interesting about Google’s acquisition of AdMob is that Google has highlighted the fact that it currently doesn’t have an offering with regards to SMS advertisements, on a web page detailing its competitors in the mobile advertising market. Just to push the point home about how important it regards SMS advertising from a revenue perspective, Google also publishes a pie chart illustrating that an estimated 55 per cent of mobile advertising budgets in 2009 will be spent on SMS advertising, compared to 25 per cent on applications and web site advertising, and 20 per cent on mobile search. In addition, Google has helpfully provided a list of five players it believes are major players in the SMS advertising market: 4INFO, Cellfire, HipCricket, iLoop Mobile and VeriSign Messaging. Google is already active in the mobile search display market, and has acquired AdMob to provide application and mobile web site advertising, which means that the above players could conceivably be regarded as acquisition targets for Google.

But given the nature of the companies that Google has listed under SMS advertising, it seems that the company’s definition of SMS advertising is broad, and includes all forms of marketing in which SMS is used, not just the relatively nascent market for the insertion of advertisements into the unused characters of a text message. Only one of the five companies that Google has highlighted as players in the SMS advertising market, 4INFO, is operating under this business model. Meanwhile HipCricket, iLoop Mobile and VeriSign Messaging could be regarded as full-service mobile marketing companies, while Cellfire specializes in mobile coupons. All of these companies would, however, use SMS as a delivery channel for mobile marketing campaigns that, for example, include a text-to-win component or an SMS coupon.

While I don’t doubt that Google has considered or is considering one or more of these five companies as an acquisition target, I believe that either 4INFO, iLoop Mobile or HipCricket are probably the best fits for the company, depending on whether Google is going to continue to focus purely on SMS advertising, or whether it enters the mobile marketing industry sector.

If Google continues to focus purely on mobile advertising, then 4INFO is probably the best suited, since it has a lengthy history in inserting advertisements in the unused characters of SMS messages. 4INFO has also secured venture capital from Draper Fisher Jurvetson, one of the companies that funded AdMob.

But if Google is also interested in the wider mobile marketing sector, then either iLoop Mobile or HipCricket is going to suit its needs better. iLoop Mobile has already essentially said “Pick me!” by publishing, almost immediately after the Google/AdMob deal was announced, a landing page on its own web site that highlighted that it sits squarely in the SMS advertising space that Google left vacant on its web page detailing the mobile advertising market. This landing page has since been removed.

I don’t think that either VeriSign Messaging’s Mobile Delivery Gateway mobile content business (the former M-Qube) or Cellfire are in with a chance. VeriSign’s MDG has been up for sale for some time, but had Google been interested I feel that it would have snapped this asset up already, since VeriSign is keen to sell and Google has the cash (or stock) to buy. Meanwhile Cellfire specializes in mobile coupons, and that’s a capability that HipCricket also provides as part of a wider portfolio of services. If Google is interested in mobile marketing, it’s probably going to want to be a full-service provider rather than a niche market player.

But will Google be prepared to pay as much as it did for AdMob for a company (or companies) that will enable it to access a market which, by its own calculations, is much more lucrative than the mobile search, web, and in-application display advertising markets put together? Only time will tell.

 URL Link to Telecoms:

http://www.telecoms.com/16549/googles-wake-up-call-we-don%e2%80%99t-have-sms-advertising-capability

Amazon's Global Kindle Reader

I heard that Amazon now has a global version of Kindle. I was disappointed to find this morning that the new version still will not work in my country.

Since I’ve wanted one for some time, but have been waiting until they got a version that would work in my country, I checked out their website this morning, only to be disappointed again. Apparently the new global version will only work in SOME countries.

In case you are thinking of purchasing the new Global Kindle for a Christmas gift this year, since the new version will only work in SOME countries, I thought it would be helpful to most expats to have a complete list of which countries it will, or will not work in.

STARRED (*) countries marked below indicate that Kindle needs to be ordered from a SPECIAL PAGE on the Amazon site.

The Global Kindle version DOES work in (as of Dec. 2009):

Aland Islands, Albania, American Samoa, Andorra, Angola, Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Armenia, Aruba, Australia*, Austria, Bahamas, Barbados, Belarus, Belgium, Belize, Benin, Bermuda, Bhutan, Bolivia, Boznia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, Bulgaria, Burundi, Cambodia, Canada, Cape Verde, Cayman Islands, Central African Republic, Colombia, Comoros, Congo, Cook Islands, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Cote d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Denmark, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Estonia, Ethiopia, Falkland Islands, Faroe Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Finland, France, French Guiana, French Polynesia, Gabon, Georgia, Germany, Ghana, Gibraltar, Greece, Greenland, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Guam, Guatemala, Guernsey, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Haiti, Holy See, Honduras, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, India, Ireland, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Jersey, Kenya, Kiribati, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Latvia, Liberia, Leichtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macao, Macedonia, Madagascar, Malawi, Malta, Marshall Islands, Martinique, Mauritius, Mayotte, Mexico, Moldovia, Monaco, Mongolia, Montenegro, Montserrat, Mozembique, Myanmar, Namibia, Nauru, Nepal, Netherlands, New Caledonia, Nicaragua, Niue, Norfolk Island, Northern Mariana Islands, Norway, Palau, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Puerto Rico, Romania, Russia, Rwanda, Réunion, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Samoa, San Marino, Sao Tome and Principe, Serbia, Seychelles, Slovakia, Slovenia, Solomon Islands, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Suriname, Swaziland, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Tanzania, Timor-Leste, Togo, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Turks and Caicos Islands, Tuvalu, Uganda, Ukraine, United Kingdom, Uruguay, Vanuatu, Venezuela, Viet Nam, Virgin Islands – British, Virgin Islands – U.S., Wallis and Futuna, Zambia, Zimbabwe.

The Global Kindle version does NOT work in (as of Dec. 2009):

Afghanistan, Algeria, Antarctica, Argentina, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Bouvet Island, British Indian Ocean Territory, Brunei Darussalam, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chile, Chad, China, Christmas Island, Cocos (Keeling) Islands, Cuba, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, French Southern Territories, Gambia, Guinea, Heard Island and McDonald Islands, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Isle of Man, Israel, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Korea – Democratic People’s Republic of, Korea – Republic of, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Lesotho, Libya, Malaysia, Maldives, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco (including the Western Sahara), New Zealand, Niger, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Palestinian Territories, Pitcairn, Qatar, Saint Barthelemy, Saint Helena, Saint Martin, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Somalia, South Georgia and the Sandwich Islands, Sudan, Svalbard and Jan Mayan, Syrian Arab Republic, Tajikistan, Thailand, Tokelau, Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, United Arab Emirates, United States Minor Outlying Islands, Uzbekistan, Yemen.

1.Does your husband force you to wear hijab?
2.Does your husband have a harem?
3.Do you walk 3 meters behind your husband?
4.Does your husband beat you?
5.Can you go to school or work?
6.Are you allowed leave the house or drive?
7.Were you forced to marry your husband?
8.Do you wear the hijab in the house as well and do you sleep or shower with it on?
9.Where from in the middle east are you?
10.Do you hate America?

I mean, seriously now…is that what people think about us? Some questions amuse me but some make me sad or even angry.Ignorance is not an excuse.People should inform themselves and cure their preconceptions before they ask such stupid questions,because it is clear that they apply a certain mentality to all muslim women in general. So anyway I tell them that:

1.Nobody forced me to do anything.I am not a vegetable but a human being with personality and will.
2.My husband has only one wife : ME
3.I walk beside my husband or sometimes ahead.LOL
4.He never laid a hand on me and never will.
5.I do have an academic education and I do work.All muslim women can do that.Our religion gives us the right and the freedom to do that.
6.Of course I can leave the house and drive.(ONLY !!! in Saudi Arabia women can’t drive)
7.No I wasn’t.
8.No I don’t.This question made me laugh actually.
9.I am Arabic and European but only 15% of the total of aprox. 1.4 billion muslims world wide,are of Arab origin.So do not assume all muslims are arabs or vice versa.
10.I don’t hate anyone.Life is too beautiful to be spend hating.

And to those who may think that I am the exception to the rule I say…Quite the contrary muslim women like me are the rule rather than the exception.

The world’s largest reverse osmosis desalination plant (and a target of Gazan missiles) is in the Ashkelon area. The desalination plant provides fresh water to Israel and supplies Gaza with its drinking water. The Israeli government plans to build four more plants which will make the country water independent.

The Ashkelon plant has been targeted by Gazan missiles. A Gazan missile hit would hurt Israel but would also stop all the fresh water flow to Gaza. Which, of course, gave me the idea for today’s cartoon.

The story of Israel’s technological advances in converting sea water to fresh drinking water probably didn’t make it to your local newspaper (or the International Media for that matter) but here’s a recent piece from Popular Mechanics:

“The Ashkelon Desalination Plant, which opened in 2005, converts more than 26 billion gallons of Mediterranean Sea water into fresh water for the State of Israel each year—5 to 6 percent of total demand. Ashkelon is not only the largest reverse-osmosis desalination plant in the world, it’s also one of the few public plants to recover waste heat to improve efficiency and reduce costs.”

Read More Dry Bones by Yaakov Kirschen