Mohamed Morsi: These futile [Israeli-Palestinian] negotiations are a waste of time and opportunities. The Zionists buy time and gain more opportunities, as the Palestinians, the Arabs, and the Muslims lose time and opportunities, and they get nothing out of it. We can see how this dream has dissipated. This dream has always been an illusion. Yet some Palestinians, who erroneously believe that their enemies might give them something… This [Palestinian] Authority was created by the Zionist and American enemies for the sole purpose of opposing the will of the Palestinian people and its interests.
Without the freedom to speak free of inhibition, there is no freedom.
One friend was kidnapped; five reporter friends were killed. In November, a car tried to force the vehicle she and her future husband were in off the road. She quit the next day, and has since left Syria for another Arab country.
“If you want freedom and say the regime is non-democratic and dictatorial, dudes, you are doing way worse by killing a journalist who is just doing his job,” she said in an interview Saturday.
“So far nearly 50,000 people have been murdered by pro-Assad soldiers and paramilitaries, making Syria’s uprising the bloodiest of those of the Arab Spring. While more than two million people have been displaced from their homes, the number of refugees is expected to reach 700,000 by the end of this year. With the beginning of winter soon arriving, with sub-zero temperatures, many children are at great risk unless we stop the ongoing massacre.” Sinem Tezyapar publishing in the Jerusalem Post, December 5, 2012 (“Syrian people need urgent help from Israel, Turkey”).
Loosely related from 2005: Efraim Inbar’s pamphlet “The Resilience of Israeli-Turkish Relations” (PDF): “Annual trade between the two nations grew to US$2 billion in 2004, up from US$200 million in 1993, and since the mid-1990s Turkey has been the number one tourist destination for Israelis.” Hard to believe today — doubtlessly true seven years ago.
The above video was uploaded about six hours ago. According to “MZWORDLNEWZ”, all of that above would seem to have taken place last night.
I’ve no way of vetting the video other than by glancing over related reference.
Egomania comes with hidden costs, but it’s no secret that people — even close associates (as noted in the RT piece listed in reference) — may only take so much provided their spirits are good and intact and they have room to maneuver. At this point, President Morsi has polarized his country and lost both a fair chunk of popular support and trust as well as critical personal support.
Would that the powerful pay the price for the chaos and damage they bring to their states, but, and this seen too well in Syria’s meltdown, the would-be constituents of a democratic society and subjects of a creeping Islamic theocracy will arm up, figure out how to discern one another, and have a go in the streets while the military’s fat cats enjoy patronage and power and, for themselves, peace away from the spotlights.
Oren Dorell’s piece published in USA Today has some analytic wisdom in it and will fill in the reader on the military’s compact with President Morsi.
Russia Today. “Curfew hits Cairo after military tanks quell anti-Morsi protests”. The piece features a recent-events video. “They’re saying . . they will not step down, will not back off, until Morsi steps down from power.” Also notable in the RT report: “The volatile situation has also led to the resignation of five more of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi’s advisors, including Seif Abdel Fattah, Ayman Sayyad and Amr Leithy who quitted Wednesday over the violence. Mena news agency reported a further resignation on Thursday. Three others did so last week to protest Morsi’s November decree.”
Salter, Ann. “Egypt: Army moves in to break up protests.” IB Times. Video. December 6, 2012: “”When Egypt reaches a point, after a revolution, where a brother kills his brother, when the people of one nation reach a point where they carry weapons against each other and slaughter each other – this is not democracy. This is terrorism, terrorism from the ruling party . . . .”
This statement leaves wide open the possible use of lethal gas against the countries supporting the Syrian rebels, such as Turkey and Jordan. And indeed, the Assad regime has in the past referred to “external enemies” as possible targets of chemical warfare.
This locution undoubtedly covers Israel. Yet against the flood of information and warnings coming from the United States, Israel is strangely silent and its media are officially discouraged from tracking the Syrian chemical weapons menace.”
” . . . and I’ll say that, of course, an attacker, who could be called the agent of Satan, he attacked, but after that I found angels on all my side, everywhere, all around me to this time and this place.”
I’m not editing videos (yet), but here I’m also not entertaining so much.
Malala’s story has had a profound impact on Pakistan’s perspective on itself and attitude toward its extremists. If by itself the tragedy proves less than pivotal, it will nonetheless feed into the weighing of justice and choices in commitments to values in whatever happens next.
It occurred to me that humans are quite similar to the spider population. Each of us spins the web of our own existence. Our world exists and finds meaning by the daily tending to the threads of our lives. These threads form our core identity and give us a sense of place in a world that now supports seven billion additional spider webs. It is important, and indeed healthy that we not be reduced to nothingness. The threads of our lives make the journey on earth worth the trip.
“Here lies the dilemma: Pakistan’s material culture is modernising and non-material culture is Islamising. The result is that the values and norms that we espouse, offer little guidance for the behaviours necessitated by our material and urban ways of living. We are in a state of moral conflict.”
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