28 Thursday May 2015
War robs you of everything including your humanity. After the war, things are never like they used to be – it takes several generations to eradicate or simply to forget its tragic consequences.
However, all the valuable things, including peace, have their price. Most Europeans naively believe that it’s been paid by their grandparents and great-grandparents during WWI and WWII, but the truth is that this valuable thing is extremely fragile and requires continuous work to keep it alive.
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28 Thursday May 2015
27 Wednesday May 2015
Posted in 21st Century Feudal, Gaza, Islamic Small Wars, Links
“Instead of upholding justice, the Hamas authorities and leadership have continuously encouraged and facilitated these appalling crimes against powerless individuals. Their failure to even condemn the unlawful killings, abduction and torture of perceived suspects leaves them effectively with blood on their hands,” said Philip Luther.
From the PDF of the Amnesty International Report (p. 12):
Amnesty International is concerned that the bodies and mechanisms set up by the Hamas de facto administration to carry out law enforcement and the administration of justice lack the necessary skills, independence, oversight, and accountability to ensure that the rule of law is respected for both victims and accused; to protect individuals from human rights abuses against them; to ensure that victims have access to effective mechanisms to obtain redress; and that accused persons are afforded due process. On the contrary, it seems clear that perpetrators of human rights abuses continue to enjoy impunity, and that the Hamas de facto administration lacks the political will to hold perpetrators of such crimes to account, particularly Hamas members, and to respect fundamental human rights, including the rights to life and to be free from torture.
Schachtel, Jordan. “Hamas Worse Than Jews, Says ISIS in Gaza.” Breitbart, May 5, 2015.
UN Watch (blog). “Hamas’ Human Shield Tactic as Reported by Foreign Journalists.” July 22, 2014.
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26 Tuesday May 2015
Posted in Links
Tags
The ties that bind are also contemporary and personal. Two Soviet leaders — Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev — not only spent their early years in Ukraine but spoke Russian with a distinct Ukrainian accent. This historic connectedness is one reason why their post-Soviet successor, Vladimir Putin, has been able to build such wide popular support in Russia for championing — and, as he is now trying to do, recreating — “Novorossiya” (New Russia) in Ukraine.
In selling his revanchist policy to the Russian public, Putin has depicted Ukrainians who cherish their independence and want to join Europe and embrace the Western democratic values it represents as, at best, pawns and dupes of NATO — or, at worst, neo-Nazis. As a result, many Russians have themselves been duped into viewing Washington, London, and Berlin as puppet-masters attempting to destroy Russia.
24 Sunday May 2015
Lumping together 1.6 billion Muslims into one reviled abstraction is a disservice not only to Israel but also to Israel’s values of democracy, diversity, tolerance, and human rights. Muslims are not an abstraction. Among Muslims, you will find neighbors, friends, relatives, business partners, co-workers, and fellow citizens. Among Muslims you will also find some of the fiercest opponents of Islamist extremism. Reality is complex and often overwhelming, but it cannot be explained away by the wholesale demonization of a quarter of the world’s population.
Fred Maroun names names — a growing list of them.
In the political psychology, we are perhaps all a little bit full of ourselves as “locus of control” play right along with “the real Jews”, “the true church”, “final word from God” and all of that. Nonetheless, bearing legacy within ourselves from near birth (or language uptake), we each have many ways of appreciating and enjoying our ethnic and spiritual endowments without feeling compelled to conquer the rest of the world with the same.
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18 Monday May 2015
Posted in Anti-Semitism, Links
Despite anything that is said to the contrary, there is no such thing as a pro-Palestinian movement, not at the United Nations, not on university campuses, not among “pro-Palestinian” demonstrators, not among world politicians, and not even in the highly “pro-Palestinian” Israeli extreme left. There is only an anti-Israel movement, born from antisemitism, and nurtured by idiocy and ignorance.
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18 Monday May 2015
Posted in Anti-Semitism, Links
Tags
And yet, while there is not a ‘wave’ of anti-Semitism and terrible things have occurred before, and while it is not a matter of centralised political mobilisation or state policy anywhere in Europe, the current upsurge of attacks on Jews and Jewish institutions and the deepening antagonisms directed from specific segments of European society are seriously worrying. The cumulative danger, stress, and burden of self-protection threaten lives and communities and also undermines liberal society.
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17 Sunday May 2015
It was left to one of the wounded to drive the pink community bus full of the dead and dying to the nearest hospital.
Ismaelis are an international community of Muslims who, like other Shia, revere the Prophet Mohammed’s son-in-law Ali but also the Imam Ismaeli, and believe in a more allegorical, mystical interpretation of the Koran.
Muslims of all sects benefit from the philanthropy of their spiritual leader, the Aga Khan, whose charitable foundations finance schools, hospitals and the revival of classical Islamic culture and architecture throughout the Muslim world.
Four days ago:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-32717321 – “Pakistan gunmen kill 45 on Karachi Ismaili bus.”
Three days ago:
http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/14/opinions/moghul-bus-attack-pakistan/ – “Pakistan at turning point on terror?” — “Extremists have a modus operandi: They destroy any and every evidence of pluralism, tolerance, and openness — which is why they focus on minorities, history, and scholarship, saving a special ire for Muslims who disagree. In Karachi, they targeted a group of Muslims — Ismaili Shia — who played a critical role in Pakistan’s formation. Don’t think that wasn’t deliberate.” (Op-ed by Haroon Mohgul).
Two days ago:
Pakistani police say they have arrested 145 people over an attack on a bus carrying Ismaili Shia Muslims that killed at least 45 in Karachi.
Those arrested are thought to include 90 students from a madrassa, or religious school.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-32751457
Yesterday:
Sources further said it is expected that investigators will evaluate evidence regarding the connection of Indian spy agency ‘RAW’ in the attack.
There was no intelligence report present of such an attack, sources added.
http://www.geo.tv/article-184984-No-evidence-of-Daesh-involvement-in-Karachi-bus-attack-Sources
With reference to Geo’s non-reporting reportage: Huh?
Today:
The terrorists did not attack and fire randomly. They put in single bullets to the head — a hallmark of executions — as if the murder was in response to a conviction, a crime. And these enemies of the state made it clear that in their eyes our Ismaili brethren, among others, are guilty by virtue of their faith.
http://tns.thenews.com.pk/43-pakistanis-died-bus/#.VVieLblVhBc Op-ed in The Sunday News section of the The International News by Waqqas Mir.
Waqqas Mir, a lawyer, goes on in his condensed and lucid opinion to note the following:
No number of laws could have saved those 43 Pakistanis who died on that bus. No number of military courts will deter such murderous violence. But effective state action, driven by the political will to counter religious bigotry at its inception could have gone a long way. Groups like the ISIS and their partners are out to destroy our states as they exist. And the state must overcome its shortcomings. Religion is a constantly available sledgehammer that everyone can use in this country. Despite repeated failure, the state has been apologetic about coming up with a pluralist discourse. It is high time that this changes.
Pakistan is a country of ghosts. They are everywhere, the victims and the perpetrators both. On Wednesday morning, six gunmen wearing police uniforms stopped an Al Azhar Garden bus carrying 60 Ismaili Muslims in Karachi. The bus picked up Ismailies from the housing society dedicated to their community on the outskirts of the city and drove them to work. It was a journey the passengers made every day.
The gunmen boarded the bus. Sub ko mar dalo, one of them is reported to have said. Kill them all. By the time the gunmen got back on their motorcycles and fled, they had murdered 43 people.
Bhutto, Fatima. “‘In Pakistan, anyone and everyone can be a target'”. The Hindu, May 15, 2015.
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