On the Destabilization of the Middle East – LobeLog
▻http://lobelog.com/on-the-destabilization-of-the-middle-east
Since his father King Salman appointed him defense minister in January 2015, no single individual has done more to destabilize the Middle East or put more civilian lives in jeopardy than the future Saudi ruler. Saudi rhetoric about Iran’s “aggression” aside, it’s been Saudi aggression that has most afflicted the region on MbS’s watch.
Sonic, the Most Sincere Hedgehog in the World
▻https://medium.com/@siegarettes/sonic-the-most-sincere-hedgehog-in-the-world-754a65eec80d
Sonic tends to continue on regardless, with the same confidence and bravado only a teenager could have.
This is his best quality.
In a world dominated by post-modern thought, irony has become one of our most valuable tools for new media. Whether that’s in a painting, comedy, online headline or endless memes, the modern world has trained us to engage everything with an ironic stance. We mask vulnerability with it, perform an affect of detachment to show that we’re free of naivety. In an environment like that it becomes dangerous to show sincerity. To engage openly and wholeheartedly is a good way to put a target on yourself.
Sonic the Hedgehog is painfully, wonderfully sincere.
Sonic is earnest in the way only a teenager can be — where novelty is king and your expectations haven’t yet been weighed down by the cynicism of adulthood.
Sonic is an emotional reality where every feeling exists at its maximum expression.
Sonic is exactly the type of character who we’d be told has been tortured for months, only for him to show up making jokes in the next scene.
“ To live a life of power, you must have faith that what you believe is right, even if others tell you you’re wrong. The first thing you must do to live a life of power is to find courage. You must be ready to reach beyond the boundaries of Time itself. And to do that, all you need is the will to take that first step…”
Sonic is so earnest it only feels right that his box art has messages telling you to live for the moment, live a life of power — or else you’ll carry regret and watch the Sun laugh at you.
Sonic runs even faster when powered by friendship — which is so powerful that it causes rock songs to play at every climax.
Sonic has the power of God and Anime on his side.
Bring any cynicism or irony to Sonic and it falls apart. Sonic refuses to be anything but earnest or positive in the worst of times. That’s not something we often have time for today. It comes off as shallow, or empty. But when I put that cynicism aside, engaged with the character openly and earnestly, I found that there was a lot I loved, that I’d forgotten. Even more, I found that there was plenty that I’d never seen before, and found fresh things to appreciate.
There is something deeply comforting about running around in Sonic’s world. Something full of joyous, infinite energy. Finding it just required me to be honest, and let myself care again.
EXCLUSIVE: Saudi torture victims include former king’s son
▻http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/exclusive-former-crown-prince-among-saudi-torture-victims-340914670
Prince Miteb bin Abdullah, the son of the late King Abdullah who was once considered a future crown prince, was beaten and tortured, along with five other princes, when he was arrested and interrogated in Riyadh during the ongoing political purge in the kingdom, Middle East Eye has confirmed.
All six princes were admitted to hospital in the 24 hours following their arrest. One of the men was in such a bad condition that he was admitted to the hospital’s intensive care unit - treatment which occurs when there is a high risk to the life of a patient, such as organ failure, from the heart, lungs, kidneys, or high blood pressure.
Hospital staff were told that the injuries sustained in each case were the result of “suicide attempts”. All had been severely beaten, but none of them had fractures. The marks on their bodies were consistent with the imprints left by military boots.
At least 17 of those detained were taken to hospital, but the number maltreated in the purge ordered by the current Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is certainly higher, according to sources who MEE is unable to identify because of concerns for their safety.
MEE has learned that medical units have now been installed in the Ritz-Carlton hotel where the beatings have taken place. This is to prevent torture victims from being taken to hospital.
Israeli prime minister after Six-Day War: ’We’ll deprive Gaza of water, and the Arabs will leave’
Declassified minutes of inner cabinet sessions in the months after the Six-Day War show government ministers who were at a loss to deal with its implications
Ofer Aderet Nov 16, 2017 8:24 AM
▻https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.823075
“Empty” the Gaza Strip, “thin out” the Galilee, rewrite textbooks and censor political cartoons in Haaretz: These are among the proposals discussed by cabinet ministers after the Six-Day War that will be available to the public in a major release of declassified government documents by the Israel State Archives on Thursday.
The material being posted on the state archives’ website includes hundreds of pages of minutes from meetings of the inner cabinet between August and December 1967. From reading them, it is clear that in the several months that followed the June 1967 war, members of the security cabinet were perplexed, confused and sometimes helpless in the face of the new challenges to the state. Israel conquered East Jerusalem, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights and the Sinai Peninsula in under a week. It was not even remotely prepared for this scenario, and had to hit the ground running.
In December 1967, six months after the war, Prime Minister Levi Eshkol speculated over how to deal with the hundreds of thousands of Arabs newly under the state’s control. “At some point we will have to decide. There are 600,000 Arabs in these territories now. What will be the status of these 600,000 Arabs?” he asked.
Eshkol evidently felt no urgency in regard to the matter. “I suggest that we don’t come to a vote or a decision today; there’s time to deal with this joy, or better put, there’s time to deal with this trouble,” he said. “But for the record I’m prepared to say this: There’s no reason for the government to determine its position on the future of the West Bank right now. We’ve been through three wars in 20 years; we can go another 20 years without a decision.”
He got backing from Transportation Minister Moshe Carmel, who said, “If we sit 20 years, the world will get used to our being in those territories, in any case no less than they got used to [Jordan’s King] Hussein being there. We have more rights; we are more identified with these territories than he is.”
But an examination of other documents shows that Eshkol was well aware that Israel couldn’t ignore the problems posed by the occupation for long, particularly its rule over hundreds of thousands of Arabs. In one discussion he compared the Israel to “a giraffe’s neck,” because it was so narrow. “The strip of this country is like a miserable, threatening neck for us, literally stretched out for slaughter,” he said. “I cannot imagine it — how we will organize life in this country when we have 1.4 million Arabs and we are 2.4 million, with 400,000 Arabs already in the country?”
One of the “solutions” to the new situation, according to Eshkol, was to encourage Arabs to emigrate. In this context Eshkol told the ministers that he was “working on the establishment of a unit or office that will engage in encouraging Arab emigration.” He added, “We should deal with this issue quietly, calmly and covertly, and we should work on finding a way from them to emigrate to other countries and not just over the Jordan [River].”
Eshkol expressed the hope that, “precisely because of the suffocation and imprisonment there, maybe the Arabs will move from the Gaza Strip,” adding that there were ways to remove those who remained. “Perhaps if we don’t give them enough water they won’t have a choice, because the orchards will yellow and wither,” he said in this context. Another “solution,” he said, could be another war. “Perhaps we can expect another war and then this problem will be solved. But that’s a type of ‘luxury,’ an unexpected solution.”
“We are interested in emptying out Gaza first,” Eshkol summed up. To which Labor Minister Yigal Allon suggested “thinning the Galilee of Arabs,” while Religious Affairs Minister Zerah Warhaftig said, “We must increase [the number of] Jews and take all possible measures to reduce the number of Arabs.”
One idea raised by Defense Minister Moshe Dayan was to give the Arabs of the West Bank and Gaza permits to work abroad, in the hope that some would prefer to stay there. “By allowing these Arabs to seek and find work in foreign countries, there’s a greater chance that they’ll want to migrate to those countries later,” Dayan said.
As for Gaza, Dayan was pretty optimistic. According to his calculations, of the 400,000 people who then lived in Gaza, only 100,000 would remain. The rest, whom he termed refugees, “must be removed from there under any arrangement that’s made.” Among his ideas was to resettle the Gazans in eastern Jordan.
Nor was Dayan particularly worried about Israeli military rule in the West Bank. “No soldier will have any interest in interfering in the lives of the inhabitants. I have no interest in the army sitting precisely in Nablus. It can sit on a hill outside Nablus.”
Justice Minister Yaakov Shimshon Shapira took the opposite position, calling for Israel to withdraw from the territories and warning that Israel couldn’t exist as a Jewish state if it retained them. “We won’t be able to maintain the army, when there will such a large percentage of residents who [won’t serve] in the army. There won’t be a[n army] command without Arabs and certainly there won’t be a government or a Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee without Arabs when they’re 40 percent,” he said.
Finance Minister Pinhas Sapir said that remaining in the territories would be “a disaster for the State of Israel,” which would become an Arab state. He warned that there was nothing to stop the West Bank from suddenly declaring independence, and that it was only a matter of time.
Education Minister Zalman Aranne felt similarly. “I do not for one minute accept the idea that the world outside will look at the fact that we’re taking everything for ourselves and will say, ‘Bon Appetit,’” he said. “After all in another year or half a year the world will wake up; there’s a world out there and it will ask questions.”
Aranne objected to the argument, put forth by Dayan and others, that Israel must retain the territories for security reasons. “Suddenly, after all these victories, there’s no survival without these territories? Without all those things we never dreamed of before the six days of this war, like Jerusalem?” he asked.
Arab rights didn’t seem to be much of a concern for Aranne; he was more worried about the future of the Jewish state.
“The way I know the Jewish people in Israel and the Diaspora, after all the heroism, miracles and wonders, a Jewish state in which there are 40 percent Arabs, is not a Jewish state. It is a fifth column that will destroy the Jewish state. It will be the kiss of death after a generation or a generation and a half,” he warned. “I see the two million Jews before me differently when there will be 1.3 million Arabs — 1.3 million Arabs, with their high birth rate and their permanent pent-up hatred. ... We can overcome 60,000 Arabs, but not 600,000 and not a million,” Aranne concluded.
Within the inconclusive discussions of the future of the territories are the seeds of talk of establishing settlements, outposts and army bases. The minutes show that even half a year after the war, the government had not formulated an orderly policy on this issue, but discussed various ideas even as it chose to delay making these tough decisions as well.
Thus it was, for example, in the case of Hebron, when there were requests to renew the Jewish presence in the city. Eshkol showed the ministers a letter he received in November 1967 from associates of the dean of Hebron Yeshiva — which relocated to Jerusalem after the 1929 Hebron Massacre — asking the government to “make appropriate arrangements to let dozens of the yeshiva’s students, teachers and supervisors return and set up a branch in Hebron.”
Allon was all for it. “There is a benefit in finding the first nucleus of people willing to settle there. The desire of these yeshiva students is a great thing. There aren’t always candidates willing to go to such a difficult place.” No decision on the matter was made at that time, however.
There were also cabinet members who spoke of preparing for the next war. The minutes included pessimistic reports about the number of warplanes left to Israel after the war. It was argued that the Arab states had already acquired new planes and had more than Israel.
Ezer Weizman, deputy chief of staff at the time, detailed the difficulty of trying to extract promises of military aid from Washington. “Is there no hope of getting planes from any other country?” asked Interior Minister Haim-Moshe Shapira. Weizman replied, “We checked in Sweden. Sweden isn’t prepared to talk about this. England has nothing to buy. I don’t think Australia will give us anything.”
Belgium was mentioned as a possibility: It was claimed that Brussels had offered to help Jerusalem circumvent the French embargo by procuring French planes and even German tanks for Israel.
Dayan warned, “The impression, as of now, is that not only are the Arabs not rushing to make peace, they are slowly starting to think again about war.” It was six years before the Yom Kippur War.
Berlin Berlin on Vimeo
▻https://vimeo.com/55454512
Directors:
Diego Agullo and Dmitry Paranyushkin
paragullo.com
Cast:
Dmitry Paranyushkin, Adam, Enya Mommsen, Diego Agullo, David Guenther, Baby G, Jessica Cooke, Felix Mathias Ott and others
Camera:
Diego Agullo
Places: Alexanderplatz, Bradenburger Tor, Reichstag, Hauptbahnhof, Kufustendam, Holocaust Memorial, Warschauer Bruecke, Construction Site, Empty Site, Graffiti Courtyard, Zoo S-Bahn, Lichtenberg, Rosenthaler Platz U-Bahn, Hauptbahnhof S-Bahn, Sankt Oberholz, betahaus, Mitte, Made in Berlin, Humana, Acne, Voo, American Apparel, LIDL, ALDI, Netto Ghetto, a Kreuzberg bio shop, a Turkish shop, Bauhaus, Spaeti, Skalitzer Strasse, Felix Restaurant, Le Bateau Ivre, Nest, Risani Kebab, King of Falafel, Felix, Max Und Moritz, Ice Cream Shop, Starbucks, Goerlitzer Park, Tempelhof Airport, Boxhagener Platz Market, Kreuzbuerg Market, Paul-Linke Ufer, West Berlin, Goerlitzer Park U Bahn, BMW 3er 1997, Teuffelsberg, Prenzlauer Berg, Hackescher Markt, Scientology Church stall on Potsdamer Platz, Kurfustendamm, Flutgraben, Berghain, Berghain toilets, West Germany, Club der Visionaere, Agora, Kater Holzig, Kneipe, Wilde Renate, Loftus Hall, Warschauer Strasse Hof, LEAP Gallery, White Trash, Toilets, Unknown, Maybachufer in Neukoelln
Shot on location in Berlin in 2012
Exclusive : How Saudi Arabia turned on Lebanon’s Hariri
▻https://www.reuters.com/article/us-lebanon-politics-hariri-exclusive/exclusive-how-saudi-arabia-turned-on-lebanons-hariri-idUSKBN1DB0QL
From the moment Saad al-Hariri’s plane touched down in Saudi Arabia on Friday Nov. 3, he was in for a surprise.
There was no line-up of Saudi princes or ministry officials, as would typically greet a prime minister on an official visit to King Salman, senior sources close to Hariri and top Lebanese political and security officials said. His phone was confiscated, and the next day he was forced to resign as prime minister in a statement broadcast by a Saudi-owned TV channel.
[…]
Sources close to Hariri said the Saudis, while keeping Hariri under house arrest, were trying to orchestrate a change of leadership in Hariri’s Future Movement by installing his elder brother Bahaa, who was overlooked for the top job when their father was killed. The two have been at odds for years.
King Salman and His Son: Winning the US, Losing the Rest
#Madawi_Al-Rasheed
▻http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/84283/1/KingSalmanandhisSon.pdf
Écrit avant le début du kidnapping de Saad Hariri
Rania Masri - #Nasrallah's speech on 10-Nov, on the ’day... | Facebook
▻https://www.facebook.com/rania.masri/posts/10159471113935363
▻https://scontent.fbey4-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-1/p200x200/22853139_10159429832600363_896177855226342172_n.jpg?oh=d
#Nasrallah's speech on 10-Nov, on the ’day of the martyr’.
Note: I don’t translate religious terminology.
Very quick translation.
–—
[...]
Since last Saturday, Lebanon was entered into a political crisis and a new and important situation. Whether or not the situation is dangerous depends on the Lebanese ability. We hear threats. What is the situation?
In one year, Lebanon entered a political stability - with a President, a Prime Minister, and a national-unity government. A budget was decreed, for the first time in 12 years. A voting law was passed for elections. Dialogue and conversations amongst political spectrum after years of isolation. Security and stability in Lebanon that has no comparison. (We are safer than the US.) We have a calmness among Lebanese, in general.
This does not mean that there are no problems.
Even official polls show this, such as within the Beirut airport the number of travelers in the airport is 9 million. 2 million in just July and August. This is a reflection of security and calm.
This does not mean that there are no problems. there are livelihood problems and corruption and political. These should be resolved, yes, but shoudl not cover the positive side of Lebanon in general. All are responsible for this security. The compromises made by everyone brought us to this stage of security. And the liberation of Lebanon in Arsal and others also brought us here.
Within this situation, and within the positive vibes of all political spectrum to reach elections and to resolve issues - suddenly, and in one blow, Saudi Arabia summons the PM quickly and orders him, without his consultants, to issue his resignation and to read their letter. Before that, and escalating since, we have had Saudi threats ...
So what have the Saudis done until now?
(1) Direct and exceptional intervention to force the PM to resign and to read a letter that they (Saudi) had read, to place the PM under involuntary detention and not allowed to return. It is clear today that all Lebanese know that the PM was forced to resign, and all the world knows, even the US Foreign Office claim they had no knowledge. The PM is held captive in Saudi and is not allowed, until now, to return to Lebanon.
(2) A Saudi attempt to remove Hariri from his leadership of the Future movement, and to impose a new leadership upon the Future movement.
(3) A Saudi attempt to impose a new PM on Lebanon - under threat and with their vision.
(4) Attempts to inflame Lebanese against each other, to drive Lebanese to insult and protest against each other, and to fight each other. ANd when Saudi Arabia doesn’t find a response, then it accuses Lebanese of cowardice.
(5) Pushing Gulf states and other countries to pressure Lebanon
(6) Removing their citizens from Lebanon
(7) More dangerous - although it does not scare us - encouraging Israel to attack Lebanon. This is not analysis, but clear facts and information. Saudi has asked Israel to attack Lebanon and is ready to support it with millions of dollars! Today there is a discussion within the Zionist entity on this issue, and today and yesterday within the Israeli press, there is lots of discussion that the 2006 was upon a Saudi request and that Saudi encouraged Israel to continue with the war until the Resistance was vanquished. Of course, Israel has its own calculations.
Clearly, Saudi leadership has declared war on Lebanon, and not just on Hezbollah in Lebanon. Clearly, they have declared war on all of Lebanon.
I say to all Lebanese, with all love and honesty, to propose to them ... Until the evening of the resignation, we were living a very important stage - of stability and security; we need to realize that this was/is very important. We need to understand the importance and value that we are living in Lebanon and to protect it. On the other hand, Saudi calls upon you to destroy it the stability and security in Lebanon, to destroy your own homes with your own hands. Will you do that?
Is it true that Saudi, through all these actions, want to save Lebanon? We understand that there is a problem between Saudi and Hezbollah, but are these actions by Saudi a war against Hezbollah or a war against Lebanon?
Lebanese need to learn from all that has happened around them in the region. In Syria, the facts - from documents and interviews and clear statements - leaders from Saudi were on the battlefield and what happened? Those Saudi who were running the battlefield from Amman, where are they now?
I call on Lebanese to think very carefully before taking a position: to where are we taking the country?
Lebanese today are facing a critical path..
I assert
(1) In clear language, we condemn this Saudi intervention in Lebanese internal politics. We condemn this insulting behavior against PM Hariri, from the time he arrived at the airport ... The facts are clear. We consider, in Hezbollah, that an insult against Lebanon’s PM is an insult against every Lebanese. He is Lebanon’s PM!
(2) We join our voices with all Lebanese in calling for the return of Saad Hariri to Lebanon! Let him resign from the Presidential Palace, and say and do what he wishes. He may come and declare war on Hezbollah - but let him come, let him return to Lebanon, and declare his own thoughts. But for Lebanon’s PM to remain in involuntary detention is not acceptable. NO Lebanese or Arab or free person should accept this. Yes, we say, in all clarity, Lebanon’s PM is held hostage in Saudi! and we call for his release.
(3) Currently, we consider the declared resignation to be unconstitutional, and illegal, and illegitimate, and of no value - because it was not voluntary. No value to any statement made involuntarily! This applies to individuals, of course it applies to the fate of nations. The current government is still viable and legitimate and constitutional. If Hariri returns to Lebanon and submits his resignation, even if under pressure but if he offered it here in Lebanon, then we would be under a different legal and constitutional situation.
(4) The wise and rational leadership of President Aoun, with the Speaker of the House Berri, has to be one of consensus and all Lebanese should stand behind this wise leadership. So far, this leadership has managed to keep the country safe and secure
(5) The call for greater wisdom and to reject calls for political escalation. ... This current declared war on Lebanon is one of hate and anger, and the greater the anger, the greater the mistakes. ...
As I stated on Sunday, do not worry and do not fear. Our collective desire to keep our country safe is the insurance.
Today, in the face of this insult and the clear and declared threats, we need to feel responsibility to our nation and to each other, and to stand together and protect each other and defend each other, and to overcome our fears and sensitives of each others.
(6) I need to pause, as I did Sunday, in the face of the Arabiyah’s words about an assassination attempt against Hariri. Different security agencies in Lebanon refuted this - yet Arabiya Channel continues with this claim. This is Saudi news. Also the letter read by Hariri is Saudi statement. Their claim that certain Iranian elements worked for and spoke of an assassination attempt. These words and insistence are dangerous; why this insistence on this accusation? What are they planning?
(7) W/ regards to Israel, we have to be careful and pay attention. If Saudi calls for a war, no one can refute this possibility. We can say, that it is unlikely, based on our readings . furthermore, Israel has an opportunity now to attack Lebanon and Hezbollah without calling for a war since a war has high costs for Israel. .. yes, Israel can join under other headlines. Israeli FM declared to all Israeli embassies to support - diplomatically and media wise - Saudi in its war against Hezbollah! Of course, Israel will work internationally shoulder to shoulder with Saudi. Also, Israel will work to create internal division in Lebanon. A week ago, there was a dangerous event in southern Syria. The armed elements, some of whom were in Nusra Front, entered - via Israeli assistance and from areas occupied by Israel - to a Syrian village (Haddath), that is predominately Druze. Were it not for the popular defense and the Syrian Army and the pressure from occupied Golan Heights - the situation would have become much worse. For who? For Nusra Front? For what - for sectarian division between Sunni and Druze in the region? ... As for a war, we are following the situation carefully, along w/ the Lebanese Army. .. ON this day, of Ahmad Qasser who imposed a 3 day mourning on them in 1982, I say to them - that today we are stronger! Let them not think that we are scared; not at all! We are stronger! ... Israel will not lead a war for others, as their press declares will Saudi fight until the last Israeli soldier?; Israel will have a war based on their own calculations.
(8) What is between us and Saudi? Let no one claim that we are hiding from the problem. Yes, we do not deny that there is a problem. There is large Saudi anger directed against us, though primarily against Iran. I understand their anger, but we cannot understand their reaction and their insult! In Syria they had plans and hopes to change the region’s borders and maps; their hopes are vanquished. ISIS that they created is being vanquished. In Iraq, we know who brought ISIS also. We also know that they were supporting the separation of Iraqi Kurdistan and this plan also failed. In Yemen, the war has gone on for more than 1000 days! Only more massacres and now a blockade! The UN declares that if the blockade continues, then millions in Yemen would face famine! This is the current situation by Saudi. The UN - not Hezbollah - placed Saudi on the blacklist for their killing of children. But when we condemn their actions we are accused of committing a historical crime. We cannot be quiet if others are quiet. They commit these massacres but they get infuriated if their massacres are condemned. Yesterday you heard [the claim] that the missile - from Yemen to the airport in Riyadh - was smuggled from Iran, and Hezbollah was the one who sent the missile from Yemen! There is a problem with this logic. In the Saudi leadership mind they underestimate and insult Yemenis. They cannot believe that Yemenis can build missiles. Yes, Yemenis within these years can build their own missiles! Yemenis build their own drones. It is because the Saudis insult the mind of the Yemenis and underestimate them, that is when they lose. And so the Saudi blame Iran and Hezbollah for their failure in Yemen. This is the Yemeni people! They have fought and sacrificed and surprised the world. the claim that the Saudi plan in Yemen is a failure because of Hezbollah .. then wow, we are something great really! This is an exaggeration. ... What about the failure between Saudi Arabia and Qatar? We have not taken a position on this issue. Saudi wanted Qatar to kneel, and it didn’t. Also a failure. And Bahrain, yes, Saudi prohibited public protests, and threw thousands in the jails, and yet this didn’t break the will of the people but pushed the monarch to near bankruptcy! The Bahraini king regularly gets money from Saudi to pay the salaries in the Army. This is what Saudi has done to Bahrain. Another failure.
In all events, when Saudi sees in all this region failure - they come to Lebanon and think they can do something here. It is not true that Lebanon is totally under either Iranian or Saudi patronage. Big difference between Saudi and Iran in Lebanon: Iran does not interfere in internal Lebanese politics! I say this one my responsibility. Iran does not impose which PM or which leader or which electoral law... Iran does not interfere in any internal Lebanese politics. ...
Let me simplify things to you. Saudi is coming to vent its anger at us in Lebanon. It cannot respond to Iran.
To Saudi: if you think that you can defeat Lebanon or to defeat the Lebanese resistance or to defeat the Lebanese political leadership, then you are wrong and you have nothing but failure as you have failed elsewhere.
More detail... If you think your objective can be the obliteration of Hezbollah, no matter what Saudi does, they cannot defeat Hezbollah. Don’t let that be your objective. Let your objective be realistic.
Punish Hezbollah or pressure Hezbollah so it can change its actions. To leave Syria? Well, the battle is ending in Syria. Okay, pressuring and sanctioning Hezbollah to change its actions... Our position with Yemen will not be changed, because it is right! God will ask us about our position and our position there is outside of any political calculations.
As Saudi Jubair said yesterday, the Lebanese people are innocent and they are under the control of Hezbollah and we need to find a way to help Lebanese to get out of Hezbollah’s control. Great. Is this a way to rescue the Lebanese people? Are your actions in line with that objective? OR do you want to rescue Lebanese as you are trying to rescue the Yemeni people, since isn’t the war on Yemen also under the headline of rescuing the Yemeni people? Millions threatened with famine! Not one place has been left unbombed, the souks, the mosques... Is this how you rescue the Yemeni people? by killing and besieging them?! that is your way. this is how you want to rescue the Lebanese people?
Want to rescue the Lebanese people by insulting Lebanon’s PM?! Rescue Lebanese by fear-mongering?
Is Lebanon to be punished because we did not obey Saudi dictates? Even the declaration by the Future Movement calling the return of Hariri was criticized! It is not allowed to even breath.
You can sanction Hezbollah without punishing Lebanese and the government. think about it - and you will think of something. But if only hatred is thinking, then “I am blind and don’t see but i will wave my sword.”
On this day, on this great day of great martyrdom, we are here, together, holding on to our achievements, to our country and our army, to our national unity. We should not worry or be scared from all these threats.
With our unity, we shall be stronger
A political earthquake is rocking Saudi Arabia’s pillars of princ
▻https://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/Comment/2017/11/7/A-Saudi-political-earthquake-decapitates-the-system-of-princes
Saudi Arabia’s political earthquake has shaken the foundations of the country’s power structure.
A system based on the division of power between the lineages of the sons of Abd al Aziz Ibn Saud has been replaced - at least temporarily - by one based on the lineage of King Salman and within it, of his young son Muhammad.
Other Gulf monarchies, including in Qatar and Oman, have witnessed intra-family power struggles that resulted in the replacement of the sovereign by his son. But none has ever witnessed what amounts to a coup d’etat against not only the king, but against the entire monarchical system within which he exercised his powers.
So Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman’s purge of his uncles and cousins is more akin to republican coups mounted in Egypt in 1952, Iraq in 1958, or Libya in 1969.
The two key questions to be asked are (i) can the crown prince consolidate his power, and (ii) what will be the long-term consequences of the political earthquake?
The effectiveness demonstrated thus far by King Salman and his son in grabbing all the country’s reins of power suggests real political skill. They undercut Prince Muhammad bin Nayef’s base in the Ministry of Interior, one he had inherited from his father, and then utilised that base to neutralise other princes.
When a black fighter won ‘the fight of the century,’ race riots erupted across America
▻https://timeline.com/when-a-black-fighter-won-the-fight-of-the-century-race-riots-erupted-acros
On Independence Day, 1910, race riots ignited across America. Jack Johnson, a black boxer, had defeated the white Jim Jeffries in a heavyweight fight in the middle of the Reno desert. Cities around the nation, including Houston, New York, St. Louis, Omaha, New Orleans, Little Rock, and Los Angeles, erupted with the anger and vindication of a racially divided country.
The day after, newspapers set on the difficult task of tallying the aftermath. “One man was shot in Arkansas, two negroes were killed at Lake Providence, La.; one negro was killed at Mounds, Ill., and a negro fatally wounded in Roundeye, Va.,” reported one local newspaper, explaining that “the tension that existed everywhere vented itself out chiefly in street shuffles.”
A report from Houston read, “Charles Williams, a negro fight enthusiast, had his throat slashed from ear to ear on a streetcar by a white man, having announced too vociferously his appreciation of Jack Johnson’s victory in Reno.”
In Manhattan’s San Juan Hill neighborhood, a mob set fire to a black tenement, while blocking the doorway to prevent the occupants’ escape. In St. Louis, a black crowd marched the streets, pushing No one knows how many died in the wake of Johnson-Jeffries fight, but records show between 11 and 26 were killed. Likely hundreds were assaulted or beaten. To quell the disturbance, cities barred the fight video from being shown in theaters, and Congress tried to pass a bill to ban the screening of all boxing films.
William Pickens, president of the all-black Talladega College, was heartened by the symbolic victory, acknowledging it came at a great cost. “It was a good deal better for Johnson to win and a few negroes to be killed in body for it,” he said, “than for Johnson to have lost and negroes to have been killed in spirit by the preachments of inferiority from the combined white press.”
As Johnson biographer Geoffrey C. Ward pointed out, “No event yielded such widespread racial violence until the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., fifty-eight years later.”whites off the sidewalk and harassing them, before being clubbed and dispersed by police.
In Washington, two white men were fatally stabbed by black men, with 236 people arrested in that city alone. And in Omaha, a black man was smothered to death in a barber’s chair, while in Wheeling, West Virginia, a black man driving an expensive car — just as the playboyish Jack Johnson was famous for — was beset by a mob and hanged.
Voir le documentaire diffusé ce weekend sur France Culture : ▻https://www.franceculture.fr/emissions/une-histoire-particuliere-un-recit-documentaire-en-deux-parties/jack-johnson-la-couleur-de-lorgueil
(partie 2)
The Mother’s Curse: how a French king’s legacy revealed a loophole in evolution
▻https://massivesci.com/articles/dawkins-selfish-gene-mothers-curse-louis-xiv
New research with roots in colonial Canada suggests new wrinkles in ideas of evolution
Free Money at the Edge of the Tech Boom - The Atlantic
▻https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/10/stockton_ubi_basic_income/543036
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a strain of African American thought expressed by no less a leader than Martin Luther King Jr. “The solution to poverty is to abolish it directly by a now widely discussed measure: the guaranteed income,” King argued in 1967. Though Tubbs didn’t mention them, the previous year, the Black Panthers came out with their famous 10-Point Program. And there it is in point number two: “We believe that the federal government is responsible and obligated to give every man employment or a guaranteed income.”
Perhaps it’s not surprising that different black thinkers in the 1960s came to the conclusion that a guaranteed income would be an effective way to fight the poverty that resulted from structural racism. They’d just seen a generation of federal programs make white Americans much, much wealthier, while also seeing how those same policies discriminated against them. The big programs that were created during the New Deal were boxed in by what historian Ira Katznelson calls “the Southern cage.” In exchange for creating socialistic Federal programs, the then-Democrats of the south required policies that would reinforce the racial hierarchy of the country.
Maritime Monday for October 16th, 2017 : Mappaemundi – gCaptain
▻http://gcaptain.com/maritime-monday-october-16-2017
sur la compilation du lundi de gCaptain, une belle compilations de cartes et mappemondes anciennes
• la (pseudo ?) carte du Vinland
Maybe the best document mystery/controversy ever
• une compilation de 10 cartes médiévales (dont certaines en doublon par rapport au reste de la liste et d’autres-les mêmes déjà passées par ici)
Ten Beautiful Medieval Maps
▻http://www.medievalists.net/2013/07/ten-beautiful-medieval-maps
• la carte du monde de Walsperger
• la mappemonde de Zeitz
▻https://www.unibw.de/inf4/professuren/photo/persphoto/kleim/arbeitsschwerpunktekleim/zeitz/zeitzer-weltkarte-1470.jpg/image
Angewandte Informatik
▻https://www.unibw.de/inf4/professors/vc-en/staff/kleim/activities/zeitz-en/index_html
• la mappemonde de Ebstorf
• la mappemonde de Hereford
A 12th century Mappa Mundi, or map of the world, re-created for a major project at Dover Castle in which a suite of royal rooms originally built by King Henry II is undergoing a sumptuous re-creation. Photography : David Burges. | William Cowley
▻http://www.williamcowley.co.uk/uses/calligraphy-illumination/attachment/a-12th-century-mappa-mundi-or-map-of-the-world-re-created-for-a-maj
Inside the Saudi King’s 1,500-Person Entourage in Moscow - Bloomberg
▻https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-06/inside-the-saudi-king-s-1-500-person-entourage-in-moscow
Saudi officials booked two entire luxury hotels and brought their own carpets and hotel staff with King Salman bin Abdulaziz on his historic visit.
Bruce Lee, The King Of Sewers
In a sewer under Bucharest’s biggest train station a man covered with iron chains and tattoos sits on a matrimonial bed watching an action movie on a flat screen. Around him, the sewer is packed with men, women and children injecting themselves and sniffing glue. Their feet are drenched in the muddy hot water that floods the whole tunnel, with floating syringes and condoms.
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In #paywall age, free content remains king for newspaper sites - Columbia Journalism Review
▻https://www.cjr.org/business_of_news/newspaper-paywalls.php
Even as they’ve added paying Web subscribers by the hundreds of thousands, daily newspapers have decisively rejected an all-in approach featuring “hard” website paywalls that mimic their print business models. Instead, most are employing either “leaky” paywalls with unlimited “side doors” for non-subscribers or no paywalls at all, according to a CJR analysis of the nation’s 25 most-visited daily newspaper sites.
[...]
Despite what seems like widespread optimism about the prospect of digital subscriptions buttressing the industry, a full 10 sites, 40 percent of the outlets we looked at, focused on ad revenue exclusively, eschewing paywalls.
Bahrain goes public with shifting stance on Israel
▻http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2017/09/israel-bahrain-saudi-arabia-iran-yisrael-katz-parliament.html
Bahraini King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa denounces the Arab boycott of Israel and allows the subjects of his kingdom in the Gulf to visit Israel freely.
(...)
In recent years, Bahrain has begun to slowly externalize its relations with Israel. Khedouri recently met Israeli Transportation and Intelligence Minister Yisrael Katz at a conference of the World Jewish Congress, and the two were even seen in public together.
Meanwhile, most of Bahrain’s pro-Israel activity takes place through the heads of the Jewish community in the United States, in order to stay close to Washington and earn points in the White House. Qatar is also very active in this sphere, as the country is under a Sunni blockade in the Middle East.
Al-Monitor learned that the government in Bahrain recently contacted high-ranking officials in Israel with the suggestion to institutionalize mutual visits and trade between the two countries.
Navy Stands Up Naval Surface Group Western Pacific To Train, Certify Forward-Deployed Surface Ships After Recent Collisions - USNI News
▻https://news.usni.org/2017/09/19/navy-stands-naval-surface-group-western-pacific-train-certify-forward-dep
Audition au Sénat É.-U., le commandant des forces de surface reconnait des éléments qui ont été soulevés très tôt :
• horaires délirants, plus de 100 heures par semaine
• aggravés par une organisation du quart perturbant les rythmes biologiques
Il va jusqu’à envisager d’accroître la visibilité des navires de la flotte en laissant actif leur AIS !
On the personnel readiness side, Commander of Naval Surface Forces Vice Adm. Tom Rowden recently mandated that ship crews move to a 24-hour circadian rhythm watchstanding rotation, to allow sailors to get regularly scheduled sleep that their bodies can adjust to, Richardson explained during the hearing. This schedule had been recommended previously and implemented on some ships, but now all surface ships will develop this type of schedule for at-sea operations. Richardson said the change has not yet been mandated for ships in port, but that in-port workload and watchstanding rotation is being studied now. Additionally, to combat the 100-plus hours a week sailors sometimes work – which contributes to lack of sleep – “we’re starting to respond to that by supplementing the crews,” he said.
“There are measurable degradations in decision-making and in performance” when sailors do not get proper sleep, CNO noted.
On the ship side, Richardson said that simple steps such as turning on warships’ automatic identification system (AIS), which shows the location of commercial and military ships in the water, would increase warships’ visibility in congested waterways and potentially prevent future mishaps. The material readiness of the forward-deployed surface ships will also become more of a priority, with problems involving ship control systems being given an increased priority for repairs going forward, Richardson added.
Autre compte-rendu de la même audition : la décision est déjà prise et appliquée.
CNO : U.S. Navy Ships Told to Turn #AIS Transmitting ’ON’ in High-Traffic Areas – gCaptain
▻http://gcaptain.com/u-s-navy-ships-to-turn-ais-transmitting-on-in-high-traffic-areas
You may recall that following the Fitzgerald and McCain collisions, AIS animations of the incidents only included information for the merchant vessels, leaving the tracks of the warships a mystery in both cases.
When asked by committee member Senator Angus King of Maine about the technology available to Navy sailors and other ships to help with collision avoidance, Admiral Richardson responded that the Navy has taken action to turn the AIS systems on its vessels back on, particularly in high-traffic areas.
“The other question is about these ships that ran into us,” said Senator King, referring to the merchant vessels involved in the collisions. “Is there some technology that they couldn’t see us? Are we using a stealth technology?”
“Sir, it wouldn’t surprise anybody that we design our warships to have a low radar cross-section, some even designed to be very low, so that degree of stealth makes us more effective from a war-fighting standpoint,” said Admiral Richardson. “But that also imposes a burden, if you will, on the crew of that ship to understand that they are low-observable, to understand that they might not be seen as something that is as large as a destroyer. It will have a radar cross-section of a ship that is much smaller.”
“Or they are not in a conflict situation, that they emit some kind of signal,” said Senator King.
Admiral Richardson continued:
“That’s been an immediate action. There is this Automatic Identification System, AIS. We had, I think, a distorted perception of operational security that we kept that system secure – off – on our warships. One of the immediate actions following these incidents is that, particularly in heavily trafficked areas, we’re just going to turn it on.”
Farīd al-Dīn ‘Attār : MANTIC UTTAÏR ou LE LANGAGE DES OISEAUX.
▻https://archive.org/details/manticuttaroule00tassgoog
TRADUCTION DE J. H. GARCIN DE TASSY.
version texte (table de matières)
▻http://remacle.org/bloodwolf/arabe/attar/table.htm
version texte
▻http://remacle.org/bloodwolf/arabe/attar/oiseaux.htm
PHI Persian Literature in Translation — The Conference of the Birds (abridged from the Mantiq-ut-Tayr)
▻http://persian.packhum.org/persian/main?url=pf%3Ffile%3D02602030%26ct%3D0
L’édition en ligne version texte la mieux formatée (malheureusement en anglais)
accès direct au texte sans frame ▻http://persian.packhum.org/persian/pf?file=02602030&ct=28
About the SIMORḠ
►http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/simorg
SIMORḠ (Persian), Sēnmurw (Pahlavi), Sīna-Mrū (Pāzand), a fabulous, mythical bird. The name derives from Avestan mərəγō saēnō ‘the bird Saēna’, originally a raptor, either eagle or falcon, as can be deduced from the etymologically identical Sanskrit śyená. Saēna is also attested as a personal name which is derived from the bird name.
...
The identity of Tištar with Sirius, the brightest star of the constellation Canis Major (the Great Dog), is well established, and it can be assumed that Sēnmurw and Camrōš are stars, too. For Sēnmurw the constellation Aquila (Eagle), or its most prominent star, #Altair (Ar. al-ṭayr ’the bird’), is the most likely candidate.
...
In classical and modern Persian literature the Simorḡ is frequently mentioned, particularly as a metaphor for God in Sufi mysticism. In this context the bird is probably understood as male. The most famous example is Farid-al-Din ʿAṭṭār’s Manṭeq al-ṭayr ‘The parliament of the birds’ (cf. Ritter, p. 11ff., Bürgel, pp. 5-6). The Simorḡ is the king of the birds; he is close to them, but they are far from him, he lives behind the mountains called Kāf, his dwelling is inaccessible, no tongue can utter his name. Before him hang a hundred thousand veils of light and darkness. “Once, Simorḡ unveiled his face like the sun and cast his shadow over the earth...Every garment covering the fields is a shadow of the beautiful Simorḡ.” Fauth (p. 128) sees in this a memory of the Sēnmurw dispersing the seeds. Thirty birds (si morḡ) that have survived the hard and perilous quest for their king reach his palace. Coming face to face with the sun of his majesty they realize that they, the thirty birds of the outer world, are one with the Simorḡ of the inner world. Finally the birds lose themselves forever in the Simorḡ they, the shadows, are lost in him, the sun.
Peter Brook
▻https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Brook#Metteur_en_sc.C3.A8ne
1979 : La Conférence des oiseaux d’après Farid Al-Din Attar, Festival d’Avignon, Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord
La conférence des oiseaux - Performance - 1979
▻http://data.bnf.fr/39497233/la_conference_des_oiseaux_spectacle_1979
Avignon (France) : Cloître des Carmes - 15-07-1979
Metteur en scène : Peter Brook
Work : Le cantique des oiseaux. Farīd al-Dīn abō Ḥāmed Moḥamed ʿAṭṭār Nīṣ̌āpōrī (1119 ?-1190 ?)
Performance : Avignon (France) : Cloître des Carmes - 15-07-1979
Contributors : mise en scène Peter Brook ; texte de Jean-Claude Carrière d’après Farid Uddin Attar ; scénographie et costumes de Sally Jacobs ; régie générale de Régine Guitschula ; spectacle du Centre international de créations théâtrales-Bouffes du Nord ; avec Maurice Bénichou (comédien), Urs Bihler (comédien), Malik Bowens (comédien) [et al. ]
Note : Assistant mise en scène : Marie-Hélène Estienne, Nina Soufy ; Dir. artistique de Jean-Guy Lecat, Philippe Mulon. 12 représentations. Spectacle invité par le Festival de Berlin du 8 au 16 septembre et à Rome par le Teatro Club du 19 au 26 septembre puis donné à Paris, au théâtre des Bouffes du Nord, du 5 octobre au 17 novembre 1979. Au même programme : « L’Os ». Produit par Centre international de créations théâtrales-Bouffes du Nord. Spectacle présenté dans le cadre du 33e Festival d’Avignon. Dir. P. Puaux (15 juillet-7 août 1979)
Casting : Interprété aussi par Michèle George (comédienne), Miriam Goldschmidt (comédienne), Andréas Katsulas (comédien), Arnault Lecarpentier (comédien), Mireille Maalouf (comédienne), Alain Maratrat (comédien), Bruce Myers (comédien), Yoshi Oida (comédien), Natasha Parry (comédienne), Jean-Claude Perrin (comédien), Tapa Sudana (comédienne), Blaise Catala (musicien), Linda Daniel (musicienne), Alain Kremski (musicien), Amy Rubin (musicienne), Toshi Tsuchitori (musicien)
La Conférence des oiseaux
▻https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Conf%C3%A9rence_des_oiseaux
Dans les années 1970, l’œuvre a été adaptée au théâtre par Peter Brook et Jean-Claude Carrière. Appelée également La Conférence des Oiseaux, cette pièce a été jouée en Afrique, à La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club de New York, à Paris. Elle a obtenu beaucoup de succès auprès du public occidental.
Poll finds U.S.-Mexico border residents overwhelmingly value mobility, oppose wall
Residents who live along the U.S.-Mexico border overwhelmingly prefer bridges over fences and are dead set against building a new wall, according to a Cronkite News-Univision-Dallas Morning News poll.
#sondage #murs #opposition #résistance #USA #Mexique #frontières #barrières_frontalières
Border fence meets a wall of skepticism in Tijuana, where residents say U.S.-Mexico ties transcend any physical barriers
▻http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-ln-trump-visit-border-prototypes-20180312-story.html
Nouveau tag: #effet_Tur-Tur #Tur_Tur #Tur-Tur
Vigilantes Not Welcome : A Border Town Pushes Back on Anti-Immigrant Extremists
In late August last year, 39-year-old Michael Lewis Arthur Meyer exited La Gitana bar in Arivaca, Arizona, took out his phone, and started recording a video for his Facebook page: “So down here in Arivaca, if you like to traffic in children, if you like to make sure women and children have contraceptives before handing them off to the coyotes to be dragged through the desert, knowing they’re going to get raped along the way, if you’re involved in human trafficking or dope smuggling, these individuals have your back.”
Meyer, who had a trim red beard, dark sunglasses, and a camouflage American flag hat, aimed his cellphone camera at a wooden awning on a small white bungalow across the street from La Gitana, panning between two signs with the words “Arivaca Humanitarian Aid Office” and “Oficina De Ayuda Humanitaria” in turquoise letters.
The video went on for nine and a half minutes, as Meyer, the leader of a group called Veterans on Patrol, which had more than 70,000 followers on Facebook, talked about stopping border crossers and searching abandoned mineshafts for evidence of trafficked women and children. Every couple of minutes he would return to the aid office.
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https://www.motherjones.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/20190408_arivaca_05.jpg “If you’re ever down here in Arivaca,” he told his audience, “if you want to know who helps child traffickers, if you want to know who helps dope smugglers, if you want to know who helps ISIS, if you want to know who helps La Raza, MS-13, any of ’em, any of the bad guys, these people help ’em.”
The claims were false and outrageous. But Meyer had an audience, and people in town were well aware of how media-fueled anti-immigrant vitriol and conspiracies could spill over into real-world violence. It had happened there before.
Arivaca sits just 11 miles north of the Mexico border in a remote area of the Sonoran Desert. For about two decades, anti-immigrant vigilante groups have patrolled the region to try to remedy what they perceive as the federal government’s failure to secure the border. In 2009, the leader of one of these groups and two accomplices murdered two residents—a little girl and her father—during a home invasion and robbery planned to fund their activities. Meyer’s video brought that trauma back and was quickly followed by a series of incidents revolving around various vigilante groups, La Gitana, and the humanitarian aid office. When I visited in mid-September, the town was clearly on edge. “If we don’t do something about [the situation], we’re going to have bodies here again,” Arivaca’s unofficial mayor, Ken Buchanan, told me.
Shortly before making his video, Meyer had been sitting in La Gitana with several volunteers from Veterans on Patrol. Megan Davern, a 30-year-old meat cutter with work-worn hands and long brown hair, was tending bar. She had heard that a rancher living along the border was having issues with a vigilante group trespassing and flying drones over his property.
“I walked into the bar at four o’clock one day to start a shift, and I saw this big group of people in fatigues with empty gun holsters and a drone on the table, and I felt it was probably them,” Davern recalled.
Davern had heard the group’s name before and quickly did some internet research, reading highlights as the men drank. The group was founded to provide support to homeless veterans. Then, in May 2018, Meyer—who is not a veteran and has a criminal history—claimed he had discovered a child sex trafficking camp at an abandoned cement factory in Tucson. The camp, he said, was part of a pedophilia ring, and on his Facebook page he shared posts linking it to the Clintons, George Soros, and Mexican drug cartels.
Meyer, who showed up for rancher Cliven Bundy’s 2014 armed standoff with authorities in Nevada and was present during Bundy’s sons’ occupation of an Oregon wildlife refuge in 2016, declined an interview request. But the story he was spreading mimicked right-wing conspiracies like Pizzagate and QAnon, and though Tucson police investigated and debunked his claims, Meyer gained tens of thousands of social-media followers. With donations of supplies and gift cards pouring in from supporters, he vowed to gather evidence and save the women and children he claimed were being victimized.
Davern watched as Meyer and the other Veterans on Patrol volunteers left La Gitana and started filming the first video. Toward the end of the video, she stepped out of the bar to confront them. “We’ve been hearing about you for a long time,” she said, as Meyer turned the camera on her. “I’d appreciate if you don’t come in anymore.”
Banning Veterans on Patrol, Davern told me, was an easy decision: “We have a strict no-militia policy at the bar because of the history of militia violence in this town.”
Arivaca is a quirky place. To start with, it’s unincorporated, which means there’s no official mayor, no town council, no police force. The 700 or so residents are an unlikely mix of miners, ranchers, aging hippies, artists, and other folks who stumbled across the odd little community, became enchanted, and decided to make it home. A single road runs through it, linking an interstate highway to the east and a state highway to the west. The next town is 30 minutes away; Tucson is 60 miles north.
There’s no official mayor, no town council, no police force…The next town is 30 minutes away.
Jagged hills covered in scraggly mesquite spread in every direction until they meet towering mountains at the distant southern horizon. The vast landscape swallows up the dividing line with Mexico, but the presence of the border looms large.
By the early 2000s, a federal policy called Prevention Through Deterrence had pushed border crossers from urban areas to more hostile terrain like the desert around Arivaca. Migrant deaths skyrocketed, and Arivaca eventually became a staging ground for volunteers caching water and food in the desert. Some settled down, and residents opened the humanitarian aid office in 2012.
The border crossers also caught the attention of vigilante groups, many of which had formed in the late ’90s in Texas and California, and which ranged from heavily armed paramilitary-type organizations to gangs of middle-aged men sitting on lawn chairs with binoculars. “They realized that ground zero was really on the Arizona border,” said Mark Pitcavage, who researches right-wing extremism at the Anti-Defamation League.
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https://www.motherjones.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/20190408_arivaca_01.jpg One group known as the Minutemen started organizing Arizona border watches in 2005. “It was a big deal in the press,” said Heidi Beirich, a hate group expert at the Southern Poverty Law Center. Beirich credits the Minutemen with helping mainstream the demonization of undocumented migrants, calling the media-savvy group “probably the thing that started off what ultimately becomes Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant politics.”
But by 2007, the organization was splintering. One spinoff, Minutemen American Defense (MAD), was led by a woman named Shawna Forde, a name that no one in Arivaca would soon forget.
“The whole town has those emotional scars.”
Just before 1 a.m. on May 30, 2009, Forde and two accomplices murdered nine-year-old Brisenia Flores and her 29-year-old father, Raul, in their home. They also injured Brisenia’s mother, Gina Gonzales, before she drove them away by grabbing her husband’s gun and returning fire.
Raul Flores was rumored to be involved in the drug trade, and Forde, a woman with a long criminal history, had devised a plan to rob his home and use the money to finance MAD.
The murders shook Arivaca. “The whole town has those emotional scars,” Alan Wallen, whose daughter was friends with Brisenia, told me.
The day that Meyer filmed that first Facebook video in Arivaca, Terry Sayles, 69, a retired schoolteacher with a long-standing research interest in far-right groups, was at his home in Green Valley, some 45 minutes away. Sayles had been following Veterans on Patrol since the cement plant conspiracy theory first surfaced. When he saw Meyer’s video outside La Gitana, he called the bar with a warning. “You guys know that you’re on Facebook?” he asked.
“Oh, great,” Davern remembered thinking. Until then, she hadn’t realized Meyer’s video was online. “I didn’t know what the ramifications would be. Were people going to come into my work and harass me? Threaten me with violence? Were they going to find out where I live?”
Around the time of Davern’s confrontation outside the bar, La Gitana put up a sign saying that members of border vigilante groups were not welcome inside. It didn’t mention Veterans on Patrol but instead singled out another group: Arizona Border Recon (AZBR).
Tim Foley, the leader of AZBR, had moved to Arivaca in the summer of 2017. Before starting the group in 2011, Foley, who has piercing blue eyes and leathery skin from long hours in the sun, worked construction jobs in Phoenix until 2008, when the financial crisis hit. “Everything fell apart,” he told me over the phone.
Foley said that after years of seeing immigration violations on work sites go unpunished, he went down to the border and decided to dedicate himself to stopping undocumented crossers. The Southern Poverty Law Center considers AZBR a nativist extremist group, but Foley now says his main mission is gathering intelligence on Mexican drug cartels.
Just before I visited Arivaca, Foley was in Washington, DC, speaking at “The Negative Impact of Illegal Alien Crime in America,” a rally hosted by families of people killed by undocumented immigrants. Other speakers included former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who is also a Trump pardon recipient; presidential adviser Kellyanne Conway; and Rep. Steve King, a Republican from Iowa with a history of racist and anti-immigrant rhetoric.
A few days after Meyer filmed his video, a BearCat armored vehicle—the kind used by SWAT teams—came rolling into Arivaca. It had a mock .50-caliber machine gun affixed to a turret on its roof and belonged to the Utah Gun Exchange, a marketplace and media company based near Salt Lake City with a mission to build what one of its co-owners, 46-year-old Bryan Melchior, described as “web platforms that allow free speech and that promote and protect the Second Amendment.”
Before coming to Arivaca, the group had followed survivors of the Parkland high school shooting around the country during the teens’ “March for Our Lives” tour. But after President Trump threatened to shut down the government over funding for his border wall, Melchior shifted his attention. “Ultimately, we came here to tell stories from the border, and that’s what brought us to Arivaca, because there are some outspoken public figures here. Tim Foley is one of them,” Melchior told me.
Melchior, stocky with a scruffy salt-and-pepper beard and an ever-present sidearm, and his crew decided to get dinner at La Gitana. Davern was tending bar and asked the group what they were up to. When Melchior said they were a media company in town to tell border stories and that they were in touch with Foley, “the whole thing went to hell in a handbag,” he recalled.
Davern said she left their initial conversation feeling optimistic that the Utah Gun Exchange’s platform could be a good avenue to reach a different audience with information about what life was actually like at the border. But when she found out it had a channel called BuildTheWallTV, she changed her mind.
Melchior was down by the border when somebody sent him a picture of a new sign in La Gitana’s window listing the Utah Gun Exchange and Veterans on Patrol as groups that were not welcome. He later went into La Gitana with an open container of alcohol from a store across the street to ask about the sign. The interaction did not go well.
The next day, Meyer came back to town ready to film again. Playing to an audience watching in real time on Facebook Live, he walked up to La Gitana, showed the signs hanging in the window, and knocked. “Do you stand by your convictions to tell tens of thousands of supporters [that they’re not welcome]?” he asked the bartender working that day.
“Sure. Absolutely,” she replied.
Meyer went on to say that Veterans on Patrol was going to build a wall around Arivaca to make it part of Mexico. He then walked across the street to again film the humanitarian office: “This town’s made it apparent they don’t want us. They’d rather have the illegals crossing over. They’d rather help traffic the children and the women.”
To many Arivaca residents, it felt like things were building toward cataclysm. “People are terrified,” Davern told me. “These people come to town and they’re threatening. Extremely threatening.”
To many Arivaca residents, it felt like things were building toward cataclysm.
So they called a town meeting. It was held on September 9, and about 60 people came. Terry Sayles, the retired teacher from Green Valley, was there. He suggested that the town report Veterans on Patrol’s page to Facebook. The residents set up a phone tree in case they needed to quickly rally aid—local law enforcement is at least an hour away. Kelly and a couple of others formed a neighborhood watch of sorts. “We had a strategy that we had rehearsed so that if in fact there was some attempt by somebody to do harm, we could de-escalate it in a hurry and quietly defuse it,” he said.Arivacans weren’t so much concerned about Foley, Meyer, or Melchior, but about their followers, who might see their inflammatory videos and posts about Arivaca and take matters into their own hands. “Our greatest fear was some person incensed at the thought of this community engaged in sex traffic would come out here and have a shootout at our local tavern,” Dan Kelly, a Vietnam War veteran who lives in Arivaca, told me.
One of the most important things, though, was channeling the spiraling fear into a productive reaction. “We worked hard to separate the emotional response to it and try to look at it logically and coldly,” Kelly said. “The visceral side, the emotional side, was the impetus to get organized and take a rational response.”
Their containment approach worked. A couple of days after the meeting, Veterans on Patrol’s main Facebook account was taken down, stripping Meyer of his audience. The Utah Gun Exchange eventually packed up and left. Many people had refused to talk to the outlet. “Arivaca is the most unwelcoming town I’ve ever been to in my life,” Melchior complained to me.
In January, Melchior was charged in Utah with felony drug and weapons possession. Meyer also faces legal trouble, some of it stemming from videos he took of himself trespassing on private property around Tucson. He currently has several cases pending in the Pima County court system.
“There’s been significantly less obvious militia activity in Arivaca, which I contribute to a victory on our part,” Davern told me during a recent phone call. “There’s a lot less fear going around, which is great.” Town meetings continued for a while but have stopped for now. But to Davern, as long as Tim Foley is still in town, the issue isn’t resolved. “That person needs to leave,” she said, describing him as a magnet for conflict. High Country News detailed an incident in early March when locals eager to keep the peace dissuaded a group of reportedly self-described anarchists who had come to town to confront him.
Foley knows what Davern and others in Arivaca think about him but insists there’s a silent majority in town that supports his presence. “They can keep calling me the bad guy. I already know I’m not, or else I still wouldn’t be walking the streets,” he told me. “I’m not moving. I’m staying in Arivaca. They can keep crying for the rest of their lives. I really don’t care.”
Even at the height of their fear, a question hovered over the town’s residents: Were they overreacting?
It’s a question more people across the country confront as they wake up to the reality of right-wing extremism and violence. When I was in Arivaca, the answer was clear to Clara Godfrey, whose nephew Albert Gaxiola was Shawna Forde’s accomplice in the Flores murders. He and Forde had met at La Gitana. “We can never say, ‘We didn’t know,’ again,” Godfrey told me. “If anything happens, we have to say, ‘We knew, and it was okay with us.’”
▻https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/04/immigrant-vigilantes-arizona-border-arivaca
Commentaire de Reece_Jones sur twitter :
A truism of borders: the people who live there hate the way people in the interior politicize and militarize their homes.
▻https://twitter.com/reecejhawaii/status/1116404990711492608
... ce qui me fait penser au fameux effet Tur_Tur !
How Michael Jackson Inspired Amr Salama’s Personal Tale | TIFF 2017 | Hollywood Reporter
▻http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/toronto-hidden-gem-how-michael-jackson-inspired-an-egyptian-filmm
Amr Salama used the King of Pop’s death as the driving force behind ’Sheikh Jackson,’ a poignant meditation on identity and contradiction in the Islamic world.
A bearded hardline Islamic cleric with a secret passion for Michael Jackson — the idea seems like a goofy Ben Stiller comedy waiting to happen (and immediately offend). But it’s not actually as far-fetched as it sounds. In fact, when the concept for Sheikh Jackson — in which a strict Islamist and former King of Pop fan in Egypt suffers from a crisis of faith and identity after Jackson’s death in 2009 — was first suggested to director Amr Salama, it struck an intensely personal chord.
“The moment I heard it I thought, ‘Wow, this is like me in the past,’ ” says the award-winning Egyptian filmmaker behind 2011’s hard-hitting drama Asmaa and 2014’s darkly comic coming-of-age hit Excuse My French.
Sélectionné pour les Oscars, je prédis que le film fera aussi bien que Le Caire Confidentiel !
Deux stars de la prédication islamique auraient été emprisonnées en Arabie saoudite pour avoir exprimé des positions trop favorables au Qatar. Très important si confirmé.
انباء عن اعتقال السلطات السعودية سلمان العودة وعوض القرني بعد تغريدات بشأن أزمة قطر أثارت ردودًا غاضبة في المملكة | رأي اليوم
▻http://www.raialyoum.com/?p=741098
▻http://angryarab.blogspot.fr/2017/09/arrest-in-saudi-arabia-in-anticipation.html
There is quite a bit of nervousness on the part of the Saudi regime: it could be due to the impending coronation of Muhammad bin Salman. Salman Al-Awdah has been arrested and there are reports that Awad Al-Qarni was also arrested. This came days after reports that dissident Prince, Abdul-Aziz bin Fahd, was also arrested when he returned to the Kingdom for the Hajj (although he posted pictures with the king in Mecca). MbS seems increasingly politically insecure and I can’t see how this can continue especially if dissent grows within the royal family. And the presence of King Salman shields him up to a point, but he will lose that cover when he becomes King himself. Foes of the royal regime in SA are counting on MbS to bring down House of Saudi, once and for all.
Saudi Arabia is reportedly revising its ambitious plans to change its economy
▻https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/07/saudi-arabia-is-reportedly-revising-its-ambitious-plans-to-change-its-economy.
The news comes as discussions heat up around the anticipated transfer of power from the Kingdom’s King Salman to his son Prince Mohammed.
A research note released Thursday by analysis firm Eurasia Group suggested that the transfer could occur within the coming weeks to prevent the likelihood of dissent from other members of the ruling family.
“We think King Salman will proceed with promoting his son to his place in the next few weeks (if not imminently) to prevent MBS’s (Mohammed bin Salman) rivals from organizing to challenge the transition plan,” Ayham Kamel, practice head, Middle East & North Africa, at Eurasia Group noted.
But analysts have opined that the revisions indicate that infighting is already underway.
“Reports that the Saudi government is planning to dilute its reform plans may be the first sign that the power and influence of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is starting to wane and that broader opposition to reform is building,” Jason Tuvey, Middle East economist for Capital Economics, wrote in a research note.
“There’s a clear risk that the reforms, which already fell short in a number of key areas, will be watered down even further.”
“This supports our long-held view that Vision 2030 will fall short of its lofty intentions,” Tuvey added.
Waiting for a Perfect Protest ? - The New York Times
▻https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/01/opinion/civil-rights-protest-resistance.html
La violence dans les manifestations est inévitable, et les appels à ne pas manifester de la part de soi-disant sympathisants des mouvements est en fait un coup de poignard dans le dos.
Thanks to the sanitized images of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement that dominate our nation’s classrooms and our national discourse, many Americans imagine that protests organized by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and countless local organizations fighting for justice did not fall victim to violent outbreaks. That’s a myth. In spite of extensive training in nonviolent protest and civil disobedience, individuals and factions within the larger movement engaged in violent skirmishes, and many insisted on their right to physically defend themselves even while they proclaimed nonviolence as an ideal (examples include leaders of the SNCC and the Deacons for Defense and Justice in Mississippi).
The reality — which is underdiscussed but essential to an understanding of our current situation — is that the civil rights work of Dr. King and other leaders was loudly opposed by overt racists and quietly sabotaged by cautious moderates. We believe that current moderates sincerely want to condemn racism and to see an end to its effects. The problem is that this desire is outweighed by the comfort of their current circumstances and a perception of themselves as above some of the messy implications of fighting for liberation. This is nothing new. In fact, Dr. King’s 1963 “Letter From Birmingham Jail” is as relevant today as it was then. He wrote in part:
I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner but the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says, “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can’t agree with your methods of direct action.”
National polling from the 1960s shows that even during that celebrated “golden age” of nonviolent protest, most Americans were against marches and demonstrations. A 1961 Gallup poll revealed that 57 percent of the public thought that lunch counter sit-ins and other demonstrations would hurt integration efforts. A 1963 poll showed that 60 percent had an unfavorable feeling toward the planned March on Washington, where Dr. King gave his “I Have a Dream” speech. A year later, 74 percent said that since black people had made some progress, they should stop their demonstrations; and by 1969, 74 percent said that marching, picketing and demonstrations were hurting the civil rights cause. As for Dr. King personally, the figure who current moderates most readily point to as a model, 50 percent of people polled in 1966 thought that he was hurting the civil rights movement; only 36 percent believed he was helping.
The civil rights movement was messy, disorderly, confrontational and yes, sometimes violent. Those standing on the sidelines of the current racial-justice movement, waiting for a pristine or flawless exercise of righteous protest, will have a long wait. They, we suspect, will be this generation’s version of the millions who claim that they were one of the thousands who marched with Dr. King. Each of us should realize that what we do now is most likely what we would have done during those celebrated protests 50 years ago. Rather than critique from afar, come out of your homes, follow those who are closest to the pain, and help us to redeem this country, and yourselves, in the process.
Israel-Jordan relations remain frozen as Jordan refuses re-entry of Israeli ambassador
▻http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?ID=778927
BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — The Jordanian government is reportedly refusing to allow the return of the Israeli ambassador to the country, more than a month after an Israeli embassy security guard shot and killed two Jordanian citizens, Israeli news website Ynet reported on Thursday.
Additionally, Ynet reported that relations between Israel and Jordan have remained frozen and no visas are being issued, meaning that “thousands of Jordanians and Palestinians living in Jordan who cannot enter Israel through the Allenby crossing” and “163 passports of Jordanian citizens waiting to receive a visa to Israel have been held in a safe of the Israeli embassy in Jordan.”
Staff members of the Israeli embassy to Jordan, including the security guard who Ynet identified as Ziv Moyan — who killed Jordanian citizens Muhammad Zakariya al-Jawawdeh, 17, and Bashar Hamarneh in what Jordanian media and officials said was a professional dispute — had returned to Israel in late July, just days after high tensions following the shooting incident.
According to Jordanian media, the Jordanian government had decided not to allow the Israeli ambassador to Jordan and the embassy staff to return to Amman until “gaining complete assurances” guaranteeing that Moyan would be prosecuted.
Ynet reported that Jordan’s refusal to accept ambassador Einat Shlain’s return to Amman was due Shlain’s participation with Moyal and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a celebratory reception upon their return to Tel Aviv.
At the time, Jordanian news sites reported that Jordan’s King Abdullah had criticized Netanyahu’s welcoming home of the guard as “a political showoff,” saying it was "provocative and destabilizes security and encourages extremism in the region.”