region:middle east

Are British ministers consistently misleading parliament on their Middle East policy ? | Middle East Eye
▻http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/are-british-ministers-consistently-misleading-parliament-their-middle

http://www.middleeasteye.net/sites/default/files/column-image/000_1429JO.jpg

This is about the very nature of the British political system and whether Britain is in reality more a secretive, authoritarian state than a democratic one

« #démocraties »

Israel and the U.S. are triggering a risky, unnecessary war of choice in the Middle East

Triggering a Risky, Unnecessary War of Choice in the Middle East
But neither Israel’s prime minister, nor other regional U.S. allies, have any assurances America will stick around to manage the dangerous fallout from the Iran deal’s implosion

Daniel Levy May 10, 2018

▻https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-israel-and-the-u-s-are-triggering-a-risky-unnecessary-war-in-the-m

We will probably never know the extent of responsibility Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu bears for the U.S. withdrawal, under President Trump, from the Iran nuclear deal.
U.S.- Iranian relations have certainly long been poisonous, independent of Israel. Congressional enthusiasm for the deal was always low and, within the GOP, support for it near non-existent.
Still, Netanyahu and the campaign he spearheaded certainly helped to create part of the backdrop to Trump‘s announcement; indeed, in his announcement, Trump gave Israel direct credit for supposedlysupplying “definitive proof” that Iran’s nuclear intentions were never peaceful. Not for the first time, a U.S. presidential text read like it was written in Jerusalem. 

Israel will now have to live with the consequences of that success. Following Trump’s announcement, the nuclear deal is now on a clear path to unravelling completely, with only a small chance of reversing that trajectory.
Iran has been honoring the stipulations of the JCPOA, something that Netanyahu and the deal’s many critics said would never happen, and they have produced no evidence to the contrary.
The concerns which the U.S. and Israel had raised regarding the limitations of the deal, and with which Europeans, at least, were sympathetic – the sunset clause arrangements regarding Iranian nuclear energy, ballistic missile development, and especially the challenges posed by Iran regionally – all will now have to be addressed in an atmosphere of growing crisis.
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That atmosphere will only be heightened now the nuclear issue is presumably back on the table, while tensions are escalating on Israel’s northern border, and the value of American international commitments have been significantly devalued. 
Without batting an eye-lid, President Trump has effectively just called his European allies (as well as the Chinese and Russians) a bunch of morons for negotiating what he described as a “horrible,” "one-sided," “decayed,” "rotting" and “defective” deal.
Despite his recent protestations that a shortcoming of the nuclear deal was its failure to address Iran’s regional ambitions, Netanyahu was among those who pushed hardest to keep the nuclear and regional files separate in any P5+1 dealings with Iran. He has now helped bring those two together.
After Trump’s withdrawal decision there might be an attempt to create a semblance of continuity – Europeans and Iranians might explore avenues for retaining the deal which was, after all, blessed by the UN, and they could attempt to address the additional concerns raised by the U.S. But the odds are heavily stacked against that succeeding, if it is even attempted. 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivers a speech on Iran’s nuclear program, in Tel Aviv, April 30, 2018.JACK GUEZ/AFP
Europe cannot salvage the deal without the U.S. Thus far, Iran has implemented its side of the bargain without the reciprocal economic easing really materializing – that is primarily because European banks and companies feared being frozen out by U.S. financial institutions. Now what was speculation and risk management from European business has become fact, even fewer in the European private sector will risk extensive business dealings with Iran.

A strong economic stand by Europe against U.S. direct and secondary sanctions, possibly even at the WTO, might make a difference. There are few signs that Europe is preparing such a response. 
On the Iranian side the smart money will be on this strengthening those who cautioned against any expectations from the West in general, and the U.S. in particular, to honor agreements. 
To try and claim, as the White House has done recently, that this exit could be a prelude to a better deal is to stretch incredulity to breaking point.
The logic of Trump’s announcement is that he and his team expect one of three scenarios to play out - regime change in Iran, capitulation by Iran or confrontation with Iran.
The music suggests that that the U.S. is betting on scenarios one or two. Neither option has much going for it other than wishful thinking. American-driven attempts at regime change have a very poor record indeed in the Middle East, and anyone who thinks that Iran will agree to terms dictated by Washington, Riyadh and Jerusalem has not been paying attention.
All of which points in the direction of an increasing likelihood of the gloves coming off and of direct confrontation between some combination of the key protagonists (the U.S., Israel and Saudi Arabia on one side, Iran, Hezbollah and allied militias, including in Iraq, on the other.)

Sophisticated Android malware tracks all your phone activities
▻https://www.engadget.com/2018/05/07/zoopark-android-malware-exfiltration

It targets Middle East victims for cyber espionage purposes. An advanced type of malware can spy on nearly every Android smartphone function and steal passwords, photos, video, screenshots and data from WhatsApp, Telegram and other apps. “ZooPark” targets subjects in the Middle East and was likely developed by a state actor, according to Kaspersky Lab, which first spotted and identified it. ZooPark has evolved over four generations, having started as simple malware that could “only” steal (...)

#WhatsApp #Telegram #Android #malware #hacking

US special forces operations in Yemen presage wider regional war - World Socialist Web Site
▻https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/05/05/pers-m05.html

US special forces operations in Yemen presage wider regional war
5 May 2018

The revelation that US special forces have been operating secretively on the ground in Yemen since December underscores once again Washington’s reckless drive towards a regional conflagration with Iran.

Coming just a week before President Donald Trump is due to announce whether he will abrogate the 2015 nuclear accord with Tehran, Thursday’s report in the New York Times that Green Berets are fighting alongside Saudi forces in their genocidal war against the Yemeni people demonstrates that US imperialism will stop at nothing to consolidate its hegemony over the Middle East. Having supplied the Saudis with intelligence and weaponry to continue their murderous assault on the impoverished country, resulting in the deaths of at least 13,000 civilians, the United States has now become a direct participant in the ground conflict.

#yémen #arabie_saoudite #états_unis #guerre #armement

Macron Is Too Weak to Lead the Free World – Foreign Policy
▻http://foreignpolicy.com/2018/05/04/macron-is-too-weak-to-lead-the-free-world

https://foreignpolicymag.files.wordpress.com/2018/05/gettyimages-950697822.jpg

By contrast, Macron has displayed a level of vigor, ambition, and brashness in defense of liberal internationalism that has enchanted Western elites, nudging Merkel into the shadows, where she has always felt more comfortable. Like Merkel, however, Macron will prove unable to fully grasp the mantle of Western leadership. The Frenchman may be a daring liberal preparing grand ideas for the West, but he lacks the one prerequisite observers routinely overlook: sheer power.

The leader of the free world must have both the power to succeed and the will to act. Alas, Berlin and Paris both have one without the other: Germany is a global economic powerhouse haunted by its 20th-century history, while France is a mid-sized regional player with memories of imperial grandeur. For Macron, this sets the tone of his foreign policy — the French president is routinely working to borrow power for his vision in Europe from Germany and in the Middle East from the United States. Time and again, Macron has labored to cajole, seduce, pressure, and bend his German and American counterparts to his will. Thus far, he has proved only partially successful.
[…]
Macron is calculating, even cold-blooded. He exudes an unsentimental drive to leverage whomever he can to advance his vision of liberal internationalism and French greatness. Of course, his dependency on Berlin and Washington will always act as a break on his vision. And he will never supplant the U.S. president as the leader of the free world. But he returned to Paris last week with the knowledge that his strategy of engagement has elevated him as Trump’s most influential European interlocutor. For Merkel, who arrived in Washington only one day later, the outcome was much less pleasing.

Trump Is Ending One Gulf Conflict to Start Another – Foreign Policy
▻http://foreignpolicy.com/2018/05/03/trump-is-ending-one-gulf-conflict-to-start-another

https://foreignpolicymag.files.wordpress.com/2018/05/gettyimages-686172472.jpg

Now Trump is back to intervening — but only to make an apparent U-turn. Instead of hammering the Qataris as he did last June, the president just sent his newly confirmed secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, to the Middle East, where he read the Saudis the riot act. Pompeo told Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir to fix the problem with Qataris. Enough is apparently enough.

What changed? The Trump administration realized its relationship with #Iran is coming to a head, and it wants a unified Gulf Cooperation Council on its side. Trump’s change of tone on Qatar almost certainly means he has made up his mind to bust the Iran nuclear deal in the coming weeks.

Ironically, the Saudi-Emirati-Egyptian-Bahraini blockade had become, in the interim, the new regional reality, with #Qatar using its considerable financial wherewithal to tread water. It has set up its own dairy industry, adjusted Qatar Airways’ flight patterns, deepened its ties with Turkey, and accepted shipments of food from Iran, especially in the early days of the blockade. The emir has also used the fact that not everyone in the region was on board with the four countries’ program to his own diplomatic advantage.

The blockading nations, for their part, once they understood the Qataris would not knuckle under and accede to 13 demands they had laid out as a condition for ending the blockade, shifted to working toward Doha’s long-term isolation in the region. The conflict has thus settled into a pattern of each side indulging in various degrees of trolling via fake news, strategic leaks, and hacks to embarrass the other. At times the level of pettiness has barely approached middle school levels. Etihad Airways has, for example, removed the word “Qatar” from its moving map program; meanwhile, the repeated public dumps of the Emirati ambassador’s emails have taken on a vendetta quality.

#nuit_torride #mesquineries
#bagarre_de_cour_de_récréation (c’est pas moi qui le dit…)

Despite Iran’s threats, Israeli army pushes aggressive line against Tehran in Syria

IDF believes Iran won’t strike back before Trump’s deadline on nuclear deal, elections in Lebanon

Amos Harel May 04, 2018
Haaretz.com
▻https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/.premium-israeli-army-chief-eisenkot-stay-forceful-in-syria-despite-iran-1.

Both the government and the military are sticking to an aggressive policy on Iran, arguing that Israel must continue to act in any way possible to stop Iran’s military consolidation in Syria.
To really understand Israel and the Middle East - subscribe to Haaretz
Even after the two latest airstrikes attributed to Israel in Syria, on April 9 and April 29, and despite Iran’s threats of revenge, there has been no sign of any change in Israeli policy.
The person spearheading this activist policy in the north is Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot, whose position is backed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman. Reportedly, no cabinet minister has voiced opposition to the IDF’s stance, despite the risks it entails.
According to the defense establishment’s analysis, Iran continues to send advanced weapons systems to Syria. But these arms are no longer necessarily slated to be passed on to Hezbollah in Lebanon. Instead, they are being used to bolster Iran’s military deployment in Syria, and may even be meant to prepare an Iranian military response against Israel.

For now, however, Tehran seems to be debating over the nature of its promised retaliation against Israel, and even more, over its timing.
One theory being advanced is that Tehran may be reluctant to respond prior to Lebanon’s parliamentary elections this coming Sunday and U.S. President Donald Trump’s expected announcement on May 12 as to whether his country is quitting the nuclear agreement with Iran. Israel’s announcement of the theft of Iran’s nuclear archive by Mossad agents is likely to increase Iranian leaders’ embarrassment.

#Turkmenistan seeks to tap into East-West cargo flows with new seaport | Agricultural Commodities | Reuters
▻https://af.reuters.com/article/commoditiesNews/idAFL8N1S92X2

Turkmenistan on Wednesday opened a new $1.5 billion cargo and passenger seaport on the Caspian Sea aiming to boost its export revenues by handling shipping traffic between Asia and Europe.

The Central Asian country’s main source of hard currency is its gas exports, which took a hit when Russia, once its main customer, stopped all purchases in 2016 after a pricing dispute.

The port, in the city of #Turkmenbashi, will more than triple Turkmenistan’s cargo handling capacity to 25-26 million tonnes a year, the government has said.

Speaking before the official opening ceremony, Turkmen President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov said Ashgabat was ready to discuss the use of the seaport with its landlocked neighbours, a reference to Uzbekistan and Afghanistan.

Turkmenistan already has a railway link with China through neighbouring Kazakhstan and the new port could help Ashgabat win a slice of cargo flows moving between China, the Middle East and Europe. Russia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Iran also have Caspian ports.

The new port also has container handling facilities and a polypropylene terminal which will handle products from a nearby plant which is set to be launched later this year.

Turkmenistan does not report how much cargo its existing Caspian port currently handles.

#Caspienne

Citoyen du monde et témoin permanent

Abbas : 1944 – 2018 • Magnum Photos
▻https://www.magnumphotos.com/newsroom/abbas-1944-2018

https://www.magnumphotos.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/cortex/par341650.jpg

Magnum photographer Abbas has died in Paris on Wednesday April 25, 2018, at the age of 74. In a career that spanned six decades, he covered wars and revolutions in Biafra, Bangladesh, Northern Ireland, Vietnam, the Middle East, Chile, Cuba, and South Africa during apartheid. He also documented life in Mexico over several years, and pursued a lifelong interest in religion and its intersection with society.

Magnum’s current president Thomas Dworzak paid tribute to the veteran photographer, who for many at the agency has been both a friend and mentor:

“He was a pillar of Magnum, a godfather for a generation of younger photojournalists. An Iranian transplanted to Paris, he was a citizen of the world he relentlessly documented; its wars, its disasters, its revolutions and upheavals, and its beliefs – all his life. It is with immense sadness that we lose him. May the gods and angels of all the world’s major religions he photographed so passionately be there for him.”

#photographe #journaliste #témoin #Abbas #Magnum

Victims sued a Mideast bank for financing terror. Supreme Court said they can’t.
▻https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/victims-sued-mideast-bank-financing-terror-supreme-court-said-they-n868721

The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that thousands of victims of terrorist attacks overseas cannot sue a foreign bank under a U.S. law dating from the 1700s.

By a 5-4 vote, the court refused to revive lawsuits, dismissed by the lower courts, that sought to hold Arab Bank, which is headquartered in Jordan, responsible for attacks against foreign nationals in the Middle East. More than 6,000 survivors and relatives of those killed in the West Bank and Gaza claimed that officials of the bank were complicit in the attacks.

Beginning in 2004, the victims filed a series of lawsuits accusing the bank of helping to finance Hamas and other terror organizations. The legal action was filed in the U.S. and aimed at Arab Bank through its branch in New York. The lead plaintiff in the case before the Supreme Court, Joseph Jesner, lost his 19-year-old son to a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv.

(...) The ruling does not affect a separate lawsuit bought by U.S. victims accusing Arab Bank of helping to facilitate terrorist attacks in Israel. That claim was filed under a separate law.

Pour un commentaire en arabe : ▻https://www.raialyoum.com/index.php/%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%85%d8%ad%d9%83%d9%85%d8%a9-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%8a

Liens : *▻https://www.syrianarchive.org/en/collections/chemical-weapons*
*▻https://syrianarchive.org/en*

Activist group publishes database of Syria chemical attacks | Nation/World | starherald.com
▻http://www.starherald.com/news/nation_world/activist-group-publishes-database-of-syria-chemical-attacks/article_d913d0e3-d784-5f52-8280-0f4e032d01e6.html

https://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/starherald.com/content/tncms/custom/image/fe715bfe-04a1-11e8-8b23-2b4c789bc3da.jpg?_dc=1517195446

An activist group on Tuesday published a database of information on suspected chemical attacks in Syria , adding to a growing collection of videos and images documenting alleged war crimes during the seven-year conflict.

The Syrian Archive, which works with human rights groups such as Amnesty International, said it has verified 861 videos covering some 212 attacks — most of them believed to have been carried out by government forces.

The material comes from 193 sources and much of it was uploaded to social media by ordinary Syrians, the group’s co-founder, Hadi al-Khatib, told an audience in Berlin.

Al-Khatib, who has lived in Germany since 2014, said the group wants to preserve sensitive material from disappearing , so that it might eventually be used to bring those responsible for war crimes to trial. But the team, which is spread across Europe and the Middle East, also wants to “add value” to the raw material, such as by determining the location where a video was taken and, most importantly, verifying that it shows what is claimed.

The Syrian Archive cooperates with the open source journalism site Bellingcat that has made a name for itself forensically examining footage from war zones.

While most of the chemical attacks documented by the group are alleged to have been carried out by forces loyal to President Bashar Assad, including most recently in the town of Douma near Damascus, a handful have been attributed to rebel forces and the Islamic State extremist group, said Abdulrahman al-Jaloud, one of the Syrian Archive’s researchers.

Al-Khatib said he and fellow activists try not to get disheartened by the fact that efforts to bring those responsible for war crimes in Syria to trial have so far been unsuccessful.

“That doesn’t mean we should stop,” he said. “We are looking forward to the day when we can use this material, because the reconstruction of Syria must include acknowledging, investigating and prosecuting crimes.”

#syrie #attaques_chimiques #syrian_archives

Israeli minister : Natalie Portman’s boycott of Netanyahu borders on anti-Semitism - Israel News - Haaretz.com

▻https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/israeli-minister-portman-s-netanyahu-boycott-borders-on-anti-semitism-1.601

Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz said Israeli-American actress Natalie Portman’s decision not to accept the Genesis Prize and her statements on the matter border on anti-Semitism. Portman said she would not accept the award in the presence of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was scheduled to speak at the award ceremony to be held in Jerusalem.
“Natalie Portman has played into the hands of the worst of our haters and of the worst of the anti-Semites in the Middle East,” Steinitz said in an interview on Sunday with the Kan public broadcasting corporation. Portman had made a serious mistake and owes Israel an apology, the energy minister said.
To really understand Israel and the Jewish word - subscribe to Haaretz
“Criticism of Israel is not anti-Semitism. Boycotting Israel has elements of anti-Semitism,” Steinitz asserted, adding that Portman would not have boycotted China or India. Boycotting the ceremony because of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s participation practically constitutes a boycott of Israel, Steinitz asserted.

Exclusive: U.S. sorghum armada U-turns at sea after China tariffs
▻https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trade-china-sorghum-exclusive/exclusive-u-s-sorghum-armada-u-turns-at-sea-after-china-tariffs-idUSKBN1HR0

Sorghum is a niche animal feed and a tiny slice of the billions of dollars in exports at stake in the trade dispute between the world’s two largest economies, which threatens to disrupt the flow of everything from steel to electronics.

The supply-chain pain felt by sorghum suppliers on the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans underscores how quickly the mounting trade tensions between the U.S. and China can impact the global agricultural sector, which has been reeling from low commodity prices amid a global grains glut.

Twenty ships carrying over 1.2 million tonnes of U.S. sorghum are on the water, according to export inspections data from the USDA’s Federal Grain Inspection Service. Of the armada, valued at more than $216 million, at least five changed course within hours of China’s announcing tariffs on U.S. sorghum imports on Tuesday, Reuters shipping data showed.

http://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/rngs/USA-TRADE-CHINA/010061V93NG/SHIPS.jpg

#sorgo #guerre_commerciale

Palestinians uncover history of the Nakba, even as Israel cuts them off from their sources

For Palestinian historians researching the 1948 exodus of their people, the greatest challenge is getting access to the few surviving documents of the period: most are locked away in Israeli archives
By Dina Kraft Apr 20, 2018

▻https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/palestinians/.premium.MAGAZINE-hidden-stories-of-the-nakba-1.6010350

When Salim Tamari was researching his book on Arab neighborhoods in the Jerusalem area that were destroyed or conquered during the 1948 war, he had to ask Jewish-Israeli colleagues to go to the Israel State Archives to retrieve material for him. As a Palestinian, he did not have a permit to travel to the city, just 33 kilometers (20 miles) from his office in the West Bank.
He was seeking family papers, photos and diaries – precisely the kind of primary source material vital to piecing together any period in history. However, this material is often out of reach for Palestinian historians of the Nakba (the Palestinian term for the formation of Israel, which means “Catastrophe” in Arabic).
While Israelis will celebrate 70 years of the Jewish state this week, it is remembered as a national trauma by the Palestinians. Over 700,000 lost their homes in wake of the War of Independence and millions of their descendants live in refugee camps scattered throughout the Middle East.
Telling the social history of this period from a Palestinian perspective is a challenge.
When Palestinians fled or were driven from their homes – the matter has long been the subject of fierce debate – the contents were often looted or confiscated, among them the letters, books and photo albums needed to help tell the history of that period and the life that preceded it.
The limited material that remained was collected and cataloged by the nascent Israeli authorities and stored in archives. In the case of some 30,000 books collected and housed by the National Library of Israel, for example, the belongings were labeled “absentee property” and, like other materials, placed out of reach of the majority of Palestinians.
One archive of particular interest for demographic and ethnographic information is that of the Haganah (the underground, pre-independence army of British Mandatory Palestine’s Jews). This contains the so-called “Village Papers” – intelligence collected on individual villages before the war began. The materials include hand-drawn maps of Arab villages; the number of people living in them; and those they had incriminating information on who might be tapped as informers. None of it is digitized.

Migration through the Mediterranean: mapping the EU response

►http://www.ecfr.eu/specials/mapping_migration

https://www.ecfr.eu/page/-/Beyond_map.jpg?v=1523974454 https://www.ecfr.eu/page/-/fortress.jpg?v=1523974685 https://www.ecfr.eu/page/-/Map_1_-_route_4.jpg?v=1523974236

Since 2014, European citizens have been engaged in an intensifying discussion about migration. This is the result of an unprecedented increase in the number of refugees and other migrants entering Europe, many of them fleeing protracted conflicts in Africa and the Middle East, particularly the war in Syria. The phenomenon peaked in 2015, when more than one million people arrived in Europe, a large proportion of them having travelled along the eastern route through Turkey, Greece, and the Balkans. The number of arrivals has fallen significantly since 2016, albeit with more than 160,000 people reaching Europe through Mediterranean routes annually.

#migrations #asil #méditerranée #europe #cartographie #visualisation #flèches et #pas_de-flèches

Let’s banish the term ’Arab world’. What does it mean anyway? | Neheda Barakat | Opinion | The Guardian

▻https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/18/lets-banish-the-term-arab-world-what-does-it-mean-anyway

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/f2ac2920bf64bb33d21fd38cf0a73e50ec11d9b9/0_235_5180_3108/master/5180.jpg?w=1200&h=630&q=55&auto=format&usm=12&fit=crop&crop=faces%2Centropy&bm=normal&ba=bottom%2Cleft&blend64=aHR0cHM6Ly91cGxvYWRzLmd1aW0uY28udWsvMjAxOC8wMS8zMS9mYWNlYm9va19vcGluaW9ucy5wbmc&s=f9248011f96231424c9c26d5b749825f

Labelling 381 million people from 22 countries as monolithic ‘Arabs’ is misleading and inaccurate

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Wed 18 Apr 2018 06.42 BST

a family rides a motorcycle on a street that was damaged during fighting, Raqqa, Syria.
A family rides a motorcycle in a war-damaged Syria. As conflict rages, the language we use in covering this region becomes ever more important. Photograph: Hussein Malla/AP

With conflicts raging on in Syria, Palestine, Yemen and Iraq and a diaphanous calm in the rest of the Middle East, the language we use in covering this region is not only hindering our understanding of the issues, but it is also misguiding strategic policies.

#monde_arabe #discussion #mots #terminologie

Israeli series exposes raw wounds from ethnic Jewish divide - The Washington Post
▻https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/israeli-series-exposes-raw-wounds-from-ethnic-jewish-divide/2018/04/17/8fdd9bf6-4206-11e8-b2dc-b0a403e4720a_story.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1484w/2010-2019/Wires/Images/2018-04-17/AP/Israel_Jewish_Divide_46151.jpg-9d7a7.jpg?t=20170517

An electrifying new documentary series on the problematic integration of Middle Eastern Jews by Israel’s European founders in the 1950s has reopened old wounds of an ethnic divide within Judaism ahead of the country’s 70th anniversary festivities.

While Israel is marking the anniversary by highlighting its prosperity and successes, the country is still wrestling with divisions — and not only between Jews and Arabs. For Zionists who view the Jews as a people no less than a religion, the intra-Jewish rift is especially painful.

“The Ancestral Sin” has ignited outrage and disbelief by arguing that the immigrants were systematically marginalized by seemingly bigoted bureaucrats. The controversy has exposed just how raw sentiments are about the history of relations between Mizrahi Jews, from the Middle East and North Africa, and those from Europe, known as Ashkenazim.

“This was a state that directed their fate without including them at all, while deceiving them and imposing its policies on them,” said David Deri, the director. “To this day, society hasn’t really dealt very deeply with these people and places.”
[…]
Tensions have diminished over time. Marriages between Mizrahi and Ashkenazi Jews are common, and Jews of Mizrahi descent have risen to the highest echelons of the government, military, judiciary and entertainment business.

But gaps remain. There has never been a Mizrahi prime minister, for example. Mizrahim far outnumber Ashkenazim in prison, and are far outnumbered in academia. Ashkenazi men earn more than Mizrahim, according to the Adva Center, a think-tank, although less so than in the past.

The series has ramped up an internal Mizrahi debate over how to address past grievances. While many Mizrahim feel their narrative has been shut out, others willingly distanced themselves from their Middle Eastern roots upon arrival. Those efforts often morphed into anti-Arab sentiment and support for the Likud’s hard-line toward the Palestinians.

Syria attack is a win for Assad and reveals true intentions of Western powers behind it - Syria - Haaretz.com
▻https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/syria/.premium-syria-attack-is-a-win-for-assad-and-reveals-west-s-true-intentions

Jack Khoury

[...]

The coalition hasn’t learned that a Western strike on an Arab capital will never bring its citizens into the streets to celebrate or turn public support in their favor, no matter how despotic the leader. Indeed, even the Assad regime’s most bitter enemies found it hard to cheer for the Western airstrikes. It’s important to make a clear distinction between the positions of a few countries’ leaders, including the Gulf states, and the overall consciousness of citizens of the Muslim and Arab world.

Syria’s public diplomacy machine did not need to work hard when it came to the attack on Damascus and one of its suburbs by the three powers. It immediately earned the sobriquet “the trilateral aggression,” familiar to all Arab ears as the name given to the military response of France, Israel and Britain in 1956 to Egypt’s then-President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s nationalization of the Suez Canal. [...]

The scenario this time is completely different. Assad, a despot who inherited the regime from his father and has carried out unforgivable crimes against his own people, is very far from Nasser in every way. No one who supports democracy and human rights can side with his actions. But while his motives are clear – Assad will do whatever it takes to maintain his power – those of U.S. President Donald Trump, French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Theresa May are not entirely obvious.

While they pride themselves on their defense of human rights and universal values, the West does nothing to stop the ongoing slaughter in Yemen. Trump continues to extend unqualified support for Israel’s conduct toward the Palestinian people , and his two partners make do with laconic statements of censure. The events along the Israel-Gaza Strip border in the past two weeks did not elicit so much as a call for restraint from them, and oddly enough, Trump envoy Jason Greenblatt chose to lecture the Palestinians. If the goal is to defend human rights, then attention should also be paid to the regimes in Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Gulf states, which are no less totalitarian than the one in Damascus.

The blood of the Syrian people is no different from that of the Yemenis or the Palestinians. The behavior of the Western leaders at this masked ball has once again been revealed for the double game that it is, in accordance with the map of interests that serves them. Anyone who seeks a more just and rational world must first address the oldest issue in the Middle East, the need to give the Palestinians an independent state.

[...] If the West genuinely cared about the Syrian nation’s welfare, its leaders would support the national democratic opposition in the country, which envisions a modern, democratic state that provides freedom and liberty to all its citizens.

But Trump and his partners care about their interests and those of their wealthy allies in the Gulf, not about the Syrian people. The position they have taken now will not result in the establishment of a free and democratic state in the Middle East that will challenge the existing regimes, and perhaps Israel as well.

#Syrie

The biography of the founder of the Palestinian Popular Front makes it clear: The leftist leader was right -

Israelis considered George Habash a cruel airline hijacker, but Eli Galia’s new Hebrew-language book shows that the PFLP chief’s views would have been better for the Palestinians than Arafat’s compromises

Gideon Levy Apr 13, 2018

▻https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/palestinians/.premium-biography-makes-it-clear-this-palestinian-leftist-leader-was-right

George Habash was Israel’s absolute enemy for decades, the embodiment of evil, the devil incarnate. Even the title “Dr.” before his name — he was a pediatrician — was considered blasphemous.
Habash was plane hijackings, Habash was terror and terror alone. In a country that doesn’t recognize the existence of Palestinian political parties (have you ever heard of a Palestinian political party? — there are only terror groups) knowledge about the man who headed the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine was close to zero.
What’s there to know about him? A terrorist. Subhuman. Should be killed. Enemy. The fact that he was an ideologue and a revolutionary, that his life was shaped by the expulsion from Lod, changed nothing. He remains the plane hijacker from Damascus, the man from the Rejectionist Front who was no different from all the rest of the “terrorists” from Yasser Arafat to Wadie Haddad to Nayef Hawatmeh.
Now along comes Eli Galia’s Hebrew-language book “George Habash: A Political Biography." It outlines the reality, far from the noise of propaganda, ignorance and brainwashing, for the Israeli reader who agrees to read a biography of the enemy.
Presumably only few will read it, but this work by Galia, a Middle East affairs expert, is very deserving of praise. It’s a political biography, as noted in its subtitle, so it almost entirely lacks the personal, spiritual and psychological dimension; there’s not even any gossip. So reading it requires a lot of stamina and specialized tastes. Still, it’s fascinating.
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Galia has written a nonjudgmental and certainly non-propagandistic biography. Taking into consideration the Israeli mind today, this isn’t to be taken for granted.
Galia presents a wealth of information, with nearly a thousand footnotes, about the political path of Habash, a man who was considered dogmatic even though he underwent a number of ideological reversals in his life. If that’s dogmatism, what’s pragmatism? The dogmatic Habash went through more ideological changes than any Israeli who sticks to the Zionist narrative and doesn’t budge an inch — and who of course isn’t considered dogmatic.

The exodus from Lod following an operation by the Palmach, 1948.Palmach Archive / Yitzhak Sadeh Estate
In the book, Habash is revealed as a person of many contradictions: a member of the Christian minority who was active in the midst of a large Muslim majority, a bourgeois who became a Marxist, a tough and inflexible leader who was once seen weeping in his room as he wrote an article about Israel’s crimes against his people. He had to wander and flee for his life from place to place, sometimes more for fear of Arab regimes than of Israel.

He was imprisoned in Syria and fled Jordan, he devoted his life to a revolution that never happened. It’s impossible not to admire a person who devoted his life to his ideas, just as you have to admire the scholar who has devoted so much research for so few readers who will take an interest in the dead Habash, in an Israel that has lost any interest in the occupation and the Palestinian struggle.
The book gives rise to the bleak conclusion that Habash was right. For most of his life he was a bitter enemy of compromises, and Arafat, the man of compromise, won the fascinating historical struggle between the two. They had a love-hate relationship, alternately admiring and scorning each other, and never completely breaking off their connection until Arafat won his Pyrrhic victory.
What good have all of Arafat’s compromises done for the Palestinian people? What came out of the recognition of Israel, of the settling for a Palestinian state on 22 percent of the territory, of the negotiations with Zionism and the United States? Nothing but the entrenchment of the Israeli occupation and the strengthening and massive development of the settlement project.
In retrospect, it makes sense to think that if that’s how things were, maybe it would have been better to follow the uncompromising path taken by Habash, who for most of his life didn’t agree to any negotiations with Israel, who believed that with Israel it was only possible to negotiate by force, who thought Israel would only change its positions if it paid a price, who dreamed of a single, democratic and secular state of equal rights and refused to discuss anything but that.
Unfortunately, Habash was right. It’s hard to know what would have happened had the Palestinians followed his path, but it’s impossible not to admit that the alternative has been a resounding failure.

Members of the Palestinian National Council in Algiers, 1987, including Yasser Arafat, left, and George Habash, second from right. Mike Nelson-Nabil Ismail / AFP
The Palestinian Che Guevara
Habash, who was born in 1926, wrote about his childhood: “Our enemies are not the Jews but rather the British .... The Jews’ relations with the Palestinians were natural and sometimes even good” (p. 16). He went to study medicine at the American University in Beirut; his worried mother and father wrote him that he should stay there; a war was on.
But Habash returned to volunteer at a clinic in Lod; he returned and he saw. The sight of the Israeli soldiers who invaded the clinic in 1948 ignited in him the flame of violent resistance: “I was gripped by an urge to shoot them with a pistol and kill them, and in the situation of having no weapons I used mute words. I watched them from the sidelines and said to myself: This is our land, you dogs, this is our land and not your land. We will stay here to kill you. You will not win this battle” (p.22).
On July 14 he was expelled from his home with the rest of his family. He never returned to the city he loved. He never forgot the scenes of Lod in 1948, nor did he forget the idea of violent resistance. Can the Israeli reader understand how he felt?
Now based in Beirut, he took part in terror operations against Jewish and Western targets in Beirut, Amman and Damascus: “I personally lobbed grenades and I participated in assassination attempts. I had endless enthusiasm when I was doing that. At the time, I considered my life worthless relative to what was happening in Palestine.”
“The Palestinian Che Guevara” — both of them were doctors — made up his mind to wreak vengeance for the Nakba upon the West and the leaders of the Arab regimes that had abandoned his people, even before taking vengeance on the Jews. He even planned to assassinate King Abdullah of Jordan. He founded a new student organization in Beirut called the Commune, completed his specialization in pediatrics and wrote: “I took the diploma and said: Congratulations, Mother, your son is a doctor, so now let me do what I really want to do. And indeed, that’s what happened” (p. 41).
Habash was once asked whether he was the Che Guevara of the Middle East and he replied that he would prefer to be the Mao Zedong of the Arab masses. He was the first to raise the banner of return and in the meantime he opened clinics for Palestinian refugees in Amman. For him, the road back to Lod passed through Amman, Beirut and Damascus. The idea of Pan-Arabism stayed with him for many years, until he despaired of that as well.
He also had to leave medicine: “I am a pediatrician, I have enjoyed this greatly. I believed that I had the best job in the world but I had to make the decision I have taken and I don’t regret it .... A person cannot split his emotions in that way: to heal on the one hand and kill on the other. This is the time when he must say to himself: one or the other.”

Militants from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Jordan, 1969.1969Thomas R. Koeniges / Look Magazine Photograph Collection / Library of Congress
The only remaining weapon
This book isn’t arrogant and it isn’t Orientalist; it is respectful of the Palestinian national ideology and those who articulated and lived it, even if the author doesn’t necessarily agree with that ideology or identify with it. This is something quite rare in the Israeli landscape when it comes to Arabs in general and Palestinians in particular. Nor does the author venerate what’s not worthy of veneration, and he doesn’t have any erroneous romantic or other illusions. Galia presents a bitter, tough, uncompromising, very much failed and sometimes exceedingly cruel struggle for freedom, self-respect and liberation.
And this is what is said in the founding document of the PFLP, which Habash established in December 1967 after having despaired of Palestinian unity: “The only weapon left to the masses in order to restore history and progress and truly defeat enemies and potential enemies in the long run is revolutionary violence .... The only language that the enemy understands is the language of revolutionary violence” (p.125).
But this path too met with failure. “The essential aim of hijacking airplanes,” wrote Habash, “was to bring the Palestinian question out of anonymity and expose it to Western public opinion, because at that time it was unknown in Europe and in the United States. We wanted to undertake actions that would make an impression on the senses of the entire world .... There was international ignorance regarding our suffering, in part due to the Zionist movement’s monopoly on the mass media in the West” (p. 151).
The PFLP plane hijackings in the early 1970s indeed achieved international recognition of the existence of the Palestinian problem, but so far this recognition hasn’t led anywhere. The only practical outcome has been the security screenings at airports everywhere around the world — and thank you, George Habash. I read Galia’s book on a number of flights, even though this isn’t an airplane book, and I kept thinking that were it not for Habash my wanderings at airports would have been a lot shorter. In my heart I forgave him for that, for what other path was open to him and his defeated, humiliated and bleeding people?
Not much is left of his ideas. What has come of the scientific idealism and the politicization of the masses, the class struggle and the anti-imperialism, the Maoism and of course the transformation of the struggle against Israel into an armed struggle, which according to the plans was supposed to develop from guerrilla warfare into a national war of liberation? Fifty years after the founding of the PFLP and 10 years after the death of its founder, what remains?
Habash’s successor, Abu Ali Mustafa, was assassinated by Israel in 2001; his successor’s successor, Ahmad Saadat, has been in an Israeli prison since 2006 and very little remains of the PFLP.
During all my decades covering the Israeli occupation, the most impressive figures I met belonged to the PFLP, but now not much remains except fragments of dreams. The PFLP is a negligible minority in intra-Palestinian politics, a movement that once thought to demand equal power with Fatah and its leader, Arafat. And the occupation? It’s strong and thriving and its end looks further off than ever. If that isn’t failure, what is?

A mourning procession for George Habash, Nablus, January 2008. Nasser Ishtayeh / AP
To where is Israel galloping?
Yet Habash always knew how to draw lessons from failure after failure. How resonant today is his conclusion following the Naksa, the defeat in 1967 that broke his spirit, to the effect that “the enemy of the Palestinians is colonialism, capitalism and the global monopolies .... This is the enemy that gave rise to the Zionist movement, made a covenant with it, nurtured it, protected it and accompanied it until it brought about the establishment of the aggressive and fascistic State of Israel” (p. 179).
From the Palestinian perspective, not much has changed. It used to be that this was read in Israel as hostile and shallow propaganda. Today it could be read otherwise.
After the failure of 1967, Habash redefined the goal: the establishment of a democratic state in Palestine in which Arabs and Jews would live as citizens with equal rights. Today this idea, too, sounds a bit less strange and threatening than it did when Habash articulated it.
On the 40th anniversary of Israel’s founding, Habash wrote that Israel was galloping toward the Greater Land of Israel and that the differences between the right and left in the country were becoming meaningless. How right he was about that, too. At the same time, he acknowledged Israel’s success and the failure of the Palestinian national movement. And he was right about that, too.
And one last correct prophecy, though a bitter one, that he made in 1981: “The combination of a loss of lives and economic damage has considerable influence on Israeli society, and when that happens there will be a political, social and ideological schism on the Israeli street and in the Zionist establishment between the moderate side that demands withdrawal from the occupied territories and the extremist side that continues to cling to Talmudic ideas and dreams. Given the hostility between these two sides, the Zionist entity will experience a real internal split” (p. 329).
This has yet to happen.
Imad Saba, a dear friend who was active in the PFLP and is in exile in Europe, urged me for years to try to meet with Habash and interview him for Haaretz. As far as is known, Habash never met with Israelis, except during the days of the Nakba.
Many years ago in Amman I interviewed Hawatmeh, Habash’s partner at the start and the leader of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which split off from the PFLP in 1969. At the time of the interview, Habash was also living in Amman and was old and sick. I kept postponing my approach — until he died. When reading the book, I felt very sorry that I had not met this man.

Syria tensions : Unannounced Air Force flyover terrifies central Israel - Israel News - Haaretz.com
▻https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/syria-tensions-unannounced-air-force-flyover-terrifies-central-israel-1.599

https://www.haaretz.com/polopoly_fs/1.5994277.1523541219!/image/3116924707.jpg_gen/derivatives/headline_1200x630/3116924707.jpg

Israeli jet fighters appeared over the skies of central Israel Thursday, alarming citizens as they circled low amid rising tensions in the Middle East, in what was later revealed to be an unannounced flyover rehearsal for Israel’s Independence Day celebrations. The army later appologized for causing the scare.

During the flyover, Israeli jets fired flares from a system designed to counter anti-aircraft missiles. For a layman watching, these could seem like missile fire from the fighter jets.

The IDF usually notifies the public regarding training drills involving increased military activity.

Calls from concerned Tel Aviv residents poured into police hotlines, prompting the Israeli Defense Forces to clarify it was a training drill. Many Israelis went on social media and criticized the fact that there was no early notice in the media - particulalry in light of Iran’s recent threats to exact revenge on Israel for the strike in Syria.

Russia says Syrian ’chemical attack’ was staged - BBC News
▻http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-43747922

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said a reported chemical attack in Syria was staged by foreign agents.

The US and France say they have proof it took place and, alongside the UK, are considering military retaliation.

Russia, which has military forces deployed in Syria in support of the government, has warned that US air strikes risk starting a war.

The UN’s secretary general has said the Middle East is “in chaos” and the Cold War is “back with a vengeance”. Antonio Guterres was speaking to a special meeting of the UN Security Council, called by Russia.

Independent chemical weapons inspectors are expected to arrive in the area of the alleged attack on Saturday.

During a press briefing on Friday, Mr Lavrov said he had “irrefutable evidence” that the attack was staged as part of a “Russophobic campaign” led by one country, which he did not name.

The White House says it is continuing to assess intelligence and talk to its allies about how to respond.

A delegation from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) will start its investigations in Syria’s Eastern Ghouta region on Saturday but few details are expected to be released about its movements for safety reasons.

The suspected attack, denied by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government, was carried out in the Eastern Ghouta town of Douma on Saturday, reportedly killing dozens of people.
Control over the town has since passed from rebels to the Syrian and Russian military authorities.

The Violations Documentation Center (VDC), a Syrian opposition network which records alleged violations of international law in Syria, said bodies were found foaming at the mouth, and with discoloured skin and burns to the eyes.

On Thursday, unnamed US officials told NBC News they had obtained blood and urine samples from victims which had tested positive for chlorine and a nerve agent.

The US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Hayley, told the network: “We definitely have enough proof but now we just have to be thoughtful in our action.”

French President Emmanuel Macron also said he had “proof” that the Syrian government had attacked Douma with chemical weapons but did not give further details.

David Reich: ‘Neanderthals were perhaps capable of many modern human behaviours’ | Science | The Guardian
▻https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/apr/07/ever-evolving-story-humanity-david-reich-interview-neanderthals-denisov

https://interactive.guim.co.uk/uploader/embed/2018/04/human-migrations-zip/giv-3902mHkfAXZXWCT8/Human-migrations-WEB-inArticle_620.png

Homo sapiens and Neanderthals had a common ancestor, about 500,000 years ago, before the former evolved as a separate species – in Africa – and the latter as a different species in Europe. Then around 70,000 years ago, when modern humans emerged from Africa, we encountered the Neanderthals, most probably in the Middle East. We briefly mixed and interbred with them before we continued our slow diaspora across the planet.

In doing so, those early planetary settlers carried Neanderthal DNA with them as they spread out over the world’s four quarters. Hence its presence in all those of non-African origin. By contrast, Neanderthal DNA is absent in people of African origins because they remained in our species’s homeland.

.:Middle East Online:: :.
▻http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=87984

Arabic media reports stated that the Middle East has the highest per capita share of Viagra users in the world, with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt topping the list.

In 2012, Saudi newspaper Al Riyadh reported that men in the country spent as much as $1.5 billion annually on Viagra and similar medications.

While more recent estimates vary, Viagra’s trademark blue pills, which have proven through studies to significantly improve men’s sex lives around the world, obviously remain in high demand throughout the region.

#catastrophe_arabe !!!

.:Middle East Online:: :.
▻http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=87979

The Middle East, largely defined by Britain and France, the victors of the first world war, is falling apart as the region is consumed by unrivalled conflicts and political upheaval. It is splintering along religious and tribal lines — the very ones that the colonial powers failed to recognise — in large part a consequence of the calamitous Anglo-American invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

“We’re seeing the centrifugal forces of tribal or religious or ethnically divided societies coming apart because the old guard has lost influence and credibility due to the passage of time, grass-roots forces empowered by new technologies and the deep frustrations and disengagement of outside powers,” explained David Rothkopf, editor-at-large of the journal Foreign Policy.

Syria lies at the apex of this disintegration, splintered by a 7-year-old war that has come to involve the entire region along with the United States, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

The country that was once an Arab powerhouse is likely to fragment into at least three sect-based entities: Iran-backed minority Shias on the north-eastern border with Shia-dominated Iraq along with a minority Alawite statelet and a majority Sunni region. It is possible there would also be self-ruling Kurdish and Druze enclaves.

The breakup of Syria is widely seen to be inevitable because most people refuse to be ruled by the harsh, Alawite-dominated regime under the Assad dynasty, which since 1971 had become a dynastic republic through a smothering network of institutionalised corruption, fear and terror.

The region has never been stable since the Ottomans were crushed in world war one after ruling the region for some 400 years. The subsequent collapse of their empire and the artificial division of Arab lands between the wartime victors Britain and France doomed the region to decades of death and destruction.

Un festival que je me suis permis de grasser par endroit tellement c’est magnifique ! Même BHL n’arriverait pas à faire aussi bien.

#syrie #prophétie_autoréalisatrice #fardeau_de_l'homme_blanc

Alerte #santé_publique
▻https://www.globalhealthnow.org

Je me suis abonné avec le temps à des tas de newsletters et de flus rss pour suivre les questions de santé publique. Beaucoup trop, et désormais la newsletter GHN semble me donner tout ce dont j’ai besoin (et même sans doute trop).

Exemple ce matin :

Reservoir Dogs
A vaccine used to treat dogs with leishmaniasis could help stop the disease’s spread to humans, University of Iowa researchers found.

The strain of Uganda’s cholera outbreak is compounded by the flood of 70,000 Congolese refugees who’ve arrived this year, sharing crowded quarters where disease spreads easily. The International Federation of Red Cross

Some recruiters make birth control mandatory for Sri Lankan women seeking work in the Middle East, desperate to support their families amid civil war at home. The Guardian

Ireland’s measles outbreak has swelled to 40 confirmed cases after beginning in Limerick in January; an outbreak control team has been deployed. TheJournal.ie

Over 200 previously unknown viruses found in fish, frogs and reptiles have been unveiled by researchers; they date back hundreds of millions of years to the advent of modern animals. Nature

A Harder Death for People with Intellectual Disabilities – The New York Times

Facebook sent a doctor on a secret mission to ask hospitals to share patient data – CNBC

2018 March for Science will be far more than street protests – Science

Clinical trials may be based on flimsy animal data – Science

How The NRA Worked To Stifle Gun Violence Research – NPR’s Here & Now

Negative fateful life events and the brains of middle-aged men – University of California - San Diego via ScienceDaily

Solving Japan’s Fertility Crisis – IPS

In Detroit, Baby Steps to Better Births – US News

Why I did a vasectomy: Kerala man’s post on family planning is a must-read – The News Minute

Taboo talk in Mali marriages overlaps with healthy choices – Futurity

The Controversial Process of Redesigning the Wheelchair Symbol – Atlas Obscura

#veille #ressources