Non-Violent Dissent Pays

Fouad Mourtada reportedly freed yesterday after being granted royal amnesty, having spent nearly two mouths in prison for no tangible reason other than committing a crime of lèse-majesté. Even in Morocco, resilient, perseverant and honest non-violent dissent pays.

The news from Morocco (if confirmed) is a real sigh of relief for many bloggers, and HR activists who campaigned hard to make the case of Fouad known and widely published. But this is not a victory for democracy nor for HR (as the Moroccan writer Laila Lalami rightly pointed out on her blog) because the institutions of the monarchy have acted in clear subservience to the central power. And I don't think that one can feel comfortable yet in a country where people are being imprisoned and later released according to the will and whims of one single person. Anyway, Fouad is now a free man. Until Mourtada's arrest, Moroccans have enjoyed reasonably free access to the internet compared to the regional standards. They rightly spotted the danger of imprisoning Mourtada and they succesfully named and shamed the Moroccan government for what it did. Throughout the Arab World, though, many bloggers and other prisoners of opinion still languish in prisons sometimes without due process or any legal recourse.

By the way, Aid Maulid a'Nabawi Saîd (happy Maulid feast).

Chutzpah & Rekindling Hope in Obama

According to the Israeli TV and to Al-Quds Al-Arabi (as translated by the Missing Link and reported by eatbees), the Israeli cabinet has decided to forcibly evacuate northern Gaza. "[Defence Minister Ehud] Barak intends to plan for the removal of tens of thousands of Palestinians from the northern Gaza Strip, namely from the region that the resistance uses for the launch of these rockets, and to move them toward Gaza City and to confine them there," said the television report.

Chutzpah means shameless, arrogant audacity and effrontery in Hebrew, a feeling well known and "enjoyed" amongst Israelis those days. Contemptuous as they are, of the lives of hundreds of thousands they have destroyed, of the cry for reason and peace of millions who marched for justice around the world. This unmitigated effrontery, betrays in fact the levels of confidence Israel and its supporters have today, on their ability of taming most of international bodies and most importantly, the capacity to control US's foreign policy and dictate their own interests to the American decision makers.

Talking about American decision makers, I've had a protracted and interesting discussion with my friend eatbees, about the ability for someone like Sen. Barak Obama to force change in an already corrupt political system, deeply plagued by the anti-democratic influence of lobbies and pressure groups. And we evoked the relationship Obama has with the Israel lobby. The speech he gave in front of the AIPAC gathering last year, wasn't a straightforward neocon-style obsequious eulogy, but was nonetheless quite in favour of the Zionist state and it's recent actions, including its criminal destruction of neighbouring Lebanon, some mounts before. A support he reiterated in some of hes recent comments. Eatbees referred me to this article, in which I learned that the man had in 1998, attended a dinner keynoted by the late Columbia Professor Edward Said -that must be a first for a presidential hopeful,- and that one of Obama's colleagues at the university of Chicago was the Palestinian scholar at Columbia, Rashid Khalidi. George Galloway, the pro-Palestinian British MP and radio host, answered in favour of Obama when I phoned his program last year to quote parts of Barak's address in front of AIPAC. Galloway claims that Obama's body-language betrayed the feeling of unease he must have experienced in such sycophantic place, much to the dismay of many of Israel supporters who attended the speech. Obama was indeed attacked virulently recently by some prominent Israel lobby muggers, who clearly want to force him into the polemic.

Now, of course, I don't think that having dinner with Said is by any stretch of the imagination, a guarantee that a future Obama administration would at last play the role of the honest broker other administrations ought to have played for decades, but surely Obama comes at a time when many great taboos in American politics are collapsing. The lobby might have retained an enormous influence, but many analysts have decided not to succumb to its intimidations anymore and have began to expose its mafia-like machinery. What's more, the traditional fund-raising mechanisms which the Israel supporters have long dominated can now effectively be bypassed through the usage of Internet. Obama proved that to be efficient!

Will Obama be the providential emperor who will put an end to that damn Chutzpah? I prefer to wait and see.

The Politics of Sorcerer's Apprentices II

Inside Story - The backfired plan - 05 March 08. Courtesy of Aljazeera.

The Politics of Sorcerer's Apprentices

At the Roots of Today's Catastrophy in Gaza is the Old-New American Doctrine: My-Enemy's-Enemy-is-My-Friend.

The Magazine Vanity Fair, publishes a reminder on how the American strategy of trying to topple the Hamas-led, though democratically elected government of Palestine has failed and eventually back-fired. "the White House cooked up yet another scandalously covert and self-defeating Middle East debacle: part Iran-contra, part Bay of Pigs." "With confidential documents, corroborated by outraged former and current U.S. officials," the author confirms what everybody, with eyes to see, knew already.

> Here is an interesting interview with the author.

Stating the Obvious

Amnesty International, CARE International UK, CAFOD, Christian Aid, Médecins du Monde UK, Oxfam, Save the Children UK and Trócaire - say that "Israel’s blockade of Gaza is a collective punishment of the entire Gazan civilian population of 1.5 million" and that "the Israeli government's policy of blockade is unacceptable, illegal and fails to deliver security for Palestinians and Israelis alike."

"The situation for 1.5 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip is worse now than it has ever been since the start of the Israeli military occupation in 1967. The current situation in Gaza is man-made, completely avoidable and, with the necessary political will, can also be reversed."

> See Full report here.

(Picture Courtesy of Álvaro Herraiz)

Who Does He Think He's Fooling?

Change, We Can('t) Believe In!

For those who got mesmerized by Obama's speaking skills or his quite charming character, this is a reminder of what he pledged in march, last year in front of the American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC):

[...] At the same time, we must preserve our total commitment to our unique defence relationship with Israel by fully funding military assistance and continuing work on the Arrow and related missile defence programs. This would help Israel maintain its military edge and deter and repel attacks from as far as Tehran and as close as Gaza. And when Israel is attacked, we must stand up for Israel's legitimate right to defend itself. Last summer, Hezbollah attacked Israel. By using Lebanon as an outpost for terrorism, and innocent people as shields, Hezbollah has also engulfed that entire nation in violence and conflict, and threatened the fledgling movement for democracy there [...]

Last week, Obama felt the need to recomfort his pro-Israel sponsors. on the NBC's Democratic Presidential debate, he said he has long been a "stalwart friend of Israel's," believing the country to be one of the United States' "most important allies in the region," and even going as far as to call the security of Israel "sacrosanct," (See Joshua Frank's piece on CounterPunch) adding: "Now the gravest threat ... to Israel today, I believe, is from Iran. There the radical regime continues to pursue its capacity to build a nuclear weapon and continues to support terrorism across the region [...] Threats of Israel's destruction can not be dismissed as rhetoric. The threat from Iran is real and my goal as president would be to eliminate that threat."

Any objections?

P.S.: on the same course, I fully recommend this truthful article on the Israeli psyche at times of aggressive and criminal wars, by the indefatigable peace activist Uri Avnery.

(Picture Courtesy of Joe Crimmings)

Beautiful Faces

> HelpFouad.com

> Watch pictures of Fouad supporters here.

Thanks Amine for keeping me updated... as always!

Gazan Holocaust Continues Whilst the World Doesn't Give a F...

The World is watching while Israel collectively punish the Palestinians... The dirty work of getting rid of Arab Untermenschen continues unabated. Concerning the visit of Condee to the region, I've come across this quite funny invective:

"Give all Arab Leaders a Visa, and Take them with you Misses Condoleeza"

Free Fouad! Free all Political Prisonners!

The Moroccan community in France, mobilized yesterday, in support of Fouad's cause and that of all political prisonners in Morocco.

> related post.

Zionism in Action

A 24/7 Massacre-Courtesy of Aljazeera.

And in the mean time, what do you think Arab leaders might spend their Saturday night working at? Those incompetent, gutless jackasses wouldn't be able of finding their way out of a paper bag let alone defend the rights of the Palestinians. Arab leaders are guilty of dishonouring their function; guilty of letting us all down.

While the gangster called Mohamed Dahlan (as the 'AgryArab' rightly described him) and his protector, Abu Mazen, the puppet president chosen by the Israeli-American cabal to better tear the Palestinian body apart; while those two wait in the safety of the West Bank, their fellow Palestinians are being systematically massacred and executed in the Gaza concentration camp,under the noses of a somnolent 'international community' and a biased, complaisant western media.

We are being robbed (We: Arabs). In the same way Sykes and Picot robbed and fragmented the Arab World and manufactured regimes to rule the region and suit the superpowers of the time, in the same way Zionists came from nowhere and stole the Palestinian properties and land, Arab so-called 'leaders' today are stealing our hopes, our wealth, our future, our dignity.

Will it one day be possible to erase and rewind: looking back at the failures of the past, and the so-many missed opportunities, easy defeats, miscalculated policies... irrecoverable mistakes, you hope that the opportunity will be given one day to erase the frustrations and former disasters, fix the damage done and restore some of the dignity lost.

Arab leaders must be held to account... they must pay, for this calamity can not carry on forever!

This is what the late Edward Said wrote in a 2001 brilliant article of hes:

When our historians look back to the first 50 years of Israel's existence, an enormous historical responsibility shall rest damningly on the shoulders of the Arab leaders who have criminally -- yes, criminally -- allowed this to go on without even the most meagre and half-hearted response. Instead, each of them has fought each of the others, or has relied on the hopelessly self-serving theory that by trying to ingratiate themselves with the American government (even becoming clients of the US) they would assure themselves of longevity in power, regardless of whether Arab interests were being served or not. So deeply ingrained has this notion become that even the Palestinian leadership has subscribed to it [...] The average American hasn't the slightest inkling that there is a narrative of Palestinian suffering and dispossession at least as old as Israel itself. Meanwhile Arab leaders come running to Washington begging for American protection without even understanding that three generations of Americans have been brought up on Israeli propaganda to believe that Arabs are lying terrorists and that it is wrong to do business with them, let alone protect them [...]

Since 1948, Arab leaders have never bothered to confront Israeli propaganda in the US. All the immense amounts of Arab money invested in military spending (first on Soviet, then Western arms) have come to nought because Arab efforts have been neither protected by information nor explained by patient, systematic organising. The result is that literally hundred of thousands of lost Arab lives have gone for nothing, nothing at all. The citizens of the world's only superpower have been led to believe that everything Arabs do and are is wasteful, violent, fanatical and anti-Semitic. Israel is "our" only ally. And so $92 billion in aid since 1967 have gone unquestioningly from the US taxpayer to the Jewish state. As I said earlier, a total absence of planning and thought vis-à-vis the US political and cultural arena is hugely (but not exclusively) to blame for the astounding amount of Arab land and lives lost to Israel (subsidised by the US) since 1948, a major political crime which I hope the Arab leaders one day answer for.

[latest Update: according to The Independent, "An Israeli government minister warned yesterday that increasing rocket fire from Gaza would bring Palestinians a Shoah – the Hebrew word normally used to denote the Nazi Holocaust inflicted on Jews during the Second World War..." ... No comment!]

They Need Support!

Check those links and support prisoners of thought in Morocco:

> Prisoners of May the First who demanded constitutional reform in their country got harsh sentences and were fined heavily for daring to challenge the regime.

> Fouad Mourtada, who maybe stupidly usurped the identity of the Prince Rachid when he created a fake profile on FaceBook, but he received disproportionate sentences. I don't believe he would have been punished so harshly had the victim been an ordinary Moroccan.

The Good Arab Department

If you read papers like those of Oriana fallacci, Daniel Pipes, Alain Finkielkraut, Bat Ye'or and others about a so-called Arab/Muslim conspiracy to take over Europe, and some other complicated theories about a hypothetical European-Arab Axis (Eurabia) aimed at crushing... guess who... Israel (surprise! surprise!), you have the feeling that their arguments are so ludicrous that it is unlikely that their assumptions would ever caught fire.


The surprise comes when you talk with people whom you assume, are of higher education and distinctive intellect, reproducing and embracing the same moronic theories.

I was called a "Good Arab" and I barely retained my rage at the person who uttered the words and who probably acted more out of ignorance than out of any conscientious racism; albeit "positive". Adding insult to injury, the lady (a doctor) went on to explain that "most Arabs (she knew) were so attached to their cultures of origin that it makes them so inherently ineligible for integration into the western civilization," and she went on hinting at "a probable concerted attitude by the Muslims (she often switches inadvertently from Arab to Muslim) to re-establish their [incompatible] culture on European soil..."

...Gosh!

I was wordless. "now" I finally replied, "are you (meaning: you, white, Christian, catholic I guess) going to create a special set of characteristics to distinguish 'Good Arabs' like me from the other pesky folks?"

"Maybe you should park all of us in different departments" I added, "and also pin labels on our clothes so that we would be easily distinguishable... huh!"

"My word! what makes people like you any different from the Nazis?" At which point, to my greatest relief, we parted company.

I spent the last two or three weeks wandering around Morocco, enjoying my newly acquired status of a married man (which is the main reason that kept me away from blogging that long), but today I realize again how Europe despite all the advantages it unquestionably offered me, remains a mined field in spite of all the horrors of the past.