Category Archives: Middle East

Addendum to “United Nazis Workers Relief Agency (UNRWA)”

31 Sunday Aug 2014

Posted by in Anti-Semitism, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Gaza, Islamic Small Wars, Israel, Middle East, Politics, Regions

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“Rather than falsely accusing Israel,” the letter continued, “one might have expected that as the executive head of the UN, you would have admitted responsibility of the UN for such abuse of its facilities, and instituted a thorough inquiry as to how and why UNRWA facilities were placed at the disposal of the Hamas terror organization, how and why the UN officials responsible for such facilities permitted this situation to occur, and why those rockets and other weapons that were discovered in such facilities were transferred to Hamas, for their continued use against Israel’s citizens.

“In permitting the storage of weapons, and in transferring such weapons into the hands of Hamas,” the letter asserted, “the UN has in fact permitted itself to become accessory to the commission of war crimes.”

http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/20841/unrwa-aiding-terrorism/#MxaSrOKRGtDwAy43.99 – 8/31/2014.

The above passage has been added to the piece on this blog titled “United Nazis Workers Relief Agency (UNRWA)”, which appears to have been abused by Hamafia and Associates, and that to allowing its budget and facilities to abet the terrorist organization with its assaults against Israelis and, in essence by way of its tactic of putting noncombatants and civilian assets directly in the line of fire, Gazans as well.

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Gazans – A State of One’s Own

25 Monday Aug 2014

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Gaza, Islamic Small Wars, Middle East, Regions

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For more than 66 years, the game against the Jews of Israel hasn’t changed much. From armies to rogue political movements to terrorist gangs, the genocidal, go-nowhere, nothing-to-offer character of the anti-Semitic aspect of the Middle East Conflict has not changed.

By way of American paychecks to his security forces, Mahmoud Abbas, who has been called the number one anti-Semite in the world, has been irrevocably compromised and therefore stuck in neutral as regards the destruction of Israel and the Jews.

By way of fanaticism, greed, and stupidity — and there is nothing more stupid than abusing children and putting them in the way of an enemy’s entire army — Hamas has sabotaged its own psychotically grandiose ambitions.

I’ve mentioned suzerainty on this blog, which may be too much or too little but at least addresses Egyptian and Israeli security issues associated with the strip, its inhabitants, and its Hamas and other parasites.  What I haven’t brought into the BackChannels conversation is the power inherent in genuine local rule.

The Hamas enterprise, which has been about getting rich, offing the Jews (wow, what a combination), and aggrandizing itself beyond all measure, has never been about modern representative, responsive, and responsible local governance.

When The Occupation of Gaza By Hamas comes to an end, however it may do that, the arm twisting, conflict with Israel, deep smuggling, and plundering of the local population in the name of Islam will come also to an end.  In that, and perhaps only that, is there a new dawn for Gazans.

I repeat the three “R”s: Representative | Responsible | Responsive.

Bring those three into honest existence, and the entire of the middle east conflict, sixty-six years of not only of empty promises but of futile and wasteful ends, concludes.

Can approximately two million people rise to reclaim their lives in the place where they have settled?

We shall see.

Hamas – Human Shields

Source: Watch: IDF Soldier Reveals Extent of Hamas ‘Human Shields’ – 8/24/2014.

Related:

http://www.israellycool.com/2014/08/24/assessing-the-ocha-gaza-crisis-atlas-2014-report/ – 8/24/2014.

http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2014/08/another-fake-civilian-and-another.html – 8/25/2014.

Hamas – Wealth

Meet the Hamas Billionaires – 7/24/2014.

Hamas – Popularity Contest

Yesterday’s headlines are that Hamas has just rejected Egypt’s offer of a ceasefire with Israel and instead continues to fire rockets indiscriminately at Israeli towns and cities.

Less known is a crucial fact: the people of Gaza are solidly against these Hamas policies. Indeed, by a very large majority, they oppose Hamas rule altogether.

http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/gaza-public-rejects-hamas-wants-ceasefire#When:15:54:31Z#ixzz3BQ2XSv7D – 7/17/2014.

Hamas’s biggest weakness of all is its unpopularity among Palestinians in Gaza now. A poll taken in June, before the latest fighting began, showed that 70 percent of Gazans wanted a continuing cease-fire with Israel; 57 percent wanted a Fatah-Hamas unity government to renounce violence against Israel; 73 percent thought nonviolent resistance had a positive impact, and large majority thought Hamas had failed to deal with crime and corruption.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2014/07/21/how-to-break-hamass-stranglehold-on-gaza/ – 7/21/2014.

Then as Gaza’s economy began to worsen almost as quickly as the Palestinian Authority’s corruption level grew higher, fed up Gazans finally voted the PA out – and the Islamist terrorist organization Hamas into power.

Anyone who expected Hamas to do a better job for the Gazan population was soon sadly disappointed. A Sunni Muslim Brotherhood affiliate, Hamas remains fanatically resolved to destroy Israel and to murder millions of Jews in the process.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-z-chesnoff/gaza-and-palestinian-leadership_b_5589766.html – 7/23/2014.

I wonder if Gazans have the same question I do about Israel’s posture toward Hamas, a stance that seems invested in negotiating a peace with an entity that has long had all of its chips in for the annihilation of Israel and Jewry worldwide.

Related:

http://www.timesofisrael.com/with-ground-op-still-an-option-iaf-given-leeway-to-change-equation/#ixzz3BPh1VtWk – 8/25/2014.

When Hitler finally committed murder and suicide in his Berlin bunker, Germany had been already overrun by the military machinery it inspired and brought to life to do exactly that.  There were no questions about leaving the Nazis in power or negotiating anything less with them than unconditional surrender.  Has Hamas, which has grown fat off the people of Gaza, given them nothing, and brought heartache to their doors — the angered weeping of war is the province of all mankind — any different?

Addendum

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/184410#.U_vE08VdV8E – 8/25/2014.

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As Regards ISIS: On Video — TWI’s Michael Knights and Michael Eisenstadt

22 Friday Aug 2014

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Iraq, Islamic Small Wars, Middle East, Regions, Syria

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“In this new video series, Washington Institute experts assess the current state of military operations in Iraq and evaluate Abadi’s ability to extricate his country from deadlock, defeat, and disintegration.”

http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/confronting-isis-and-the-future-of-iraq-video-series – 8/21/2014.

From the looks and sound of the productions, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy (TWI) has launched a DIY-AH (do-it-yourself-at-home) effort to promote its fellows’ analyses.  May the TWI powers that be give them an upgrade in audio-visual recording technology.

What follows is an incomplete relay of the series, but in the way of the web, whether the viewer starts out with e-mail (as I did) or on TWI’s web page or YouTube, all routers lead back to some kind of primary media content.

Of course, if you heard it from me first — after I’ve heard it from them — in the older fashioned way of news, good!

“They are very good at using psychological operations to very quickly establish the sense that they control areas, putting up their flags on all key administrative buildings, cross-roads, wide visibility locations, and they’re very good at pursuing what they want in the mergers and acquisitions model of growth whereby they ruck into an area and immediately try to recruit the most like-minded insurgent group in the area to become part of ISIS.”  (1:28 – 1:59).

“First, you can’t address the ISIS threat in Iraq, without addressing the ISIS threat in Syria. Secondly, you can’t address the ISIS threat in Iraq and Syria without addressing the foreign fighter problem. And third, the U.S. really cannot “solve” the region’s problems, because they are rooted in issues of religious and political identity and legitimacy, and this is a problem that can only be worked out among Muslims themselves. ” (2:18 – 2:41)

My “big picture” thought, which might make sense of an $11 billion arms sale): what ISIS scours Qatar will devour.

One day.

However, there are many days between this day and that one, and the Ummah, bloodied from Afghanistan to Yemen, has been pushed by the ambitions and behaviors of its own subscription into a larger global conversation about rightful power, despotism, barbarism, and democracy.

Related on BackChannels

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2014/08/21/qatar-terrorist-refuge-and-financial-platform/ – 8/21/2014.

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Hamas – Bad Faith – No Ceasefire – Never Was – Will Not Be – Stop Dreaming

19 Tuesday Aug 2014

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Gaza, Islamic Small Wars, Israel, Middle East, Politics, Regions

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According to Marc Schulman writing for Newsweek, it was the ceasefire that wasn’t:

It turns out that last night the representatives of the Palestinian Authority were putting forth a patently untrue story as to what Israeli and Hamas had agreed, when neither had. Unfortunately, all of the press (both Israeli and worldwide) reported the story as true.

Israel has recalled its negotiating team.

The latest at ABC reports more than 50 rockets fired on Israel this afternoon, some reaching as far as Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

Is the reader perhaps looking for the Hamas “off-button”?

Stop looking.

It doesn’t exist.

The Hamas program script plan vision has no curtain, no final act.

In fact, the doctrine is explicit:

. . . even if the obstacles erected by those who revolve in the Zionist orbit, aiming at obstructing the road before the Jihad fighters, have rendered the pursuance of Jihad impossible; nevertheless, the Hamas has been looking forward to implement Allah’s promise whatever time it might take.

Hear,  oh Israel (and all others): with Hamas and what drives it — that deeply malignant narcissism that lends to each his own indulged and grandiose center of the universe — there is nothing to negotiate.

So Hamas does not negotiate in good faith, neither for peace and prosperity to be shared by Gazans nor for considerations having much to do, after all, with The All.

Know the character of the commanders: Ayatollah Khamenei, Khaled Mashaal, Ismail Haniyeh, and others.

Why should Hamas or any other Jihad Joe group come equipped with an “off button”?

The enterprise clearly cons the public, makes a lot of money (which with “terror tunnels” and all would seem not to reach intended deserving recipients), and harms the principles not at all (although, perhaps, after all, Allah knows what they do — and, for now, has them getting away with it).

Related Reference

http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/President-Peres-accuses-Qatar-for-financing-Hamas-terrorism-368579 – 7/23/2014.

http://www.thejc.com/comment-and-debate/analysis/121018/hamass-biggest-backer-it-has-entire-westin-palm-its-hand – 7/31/2014.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/arab-bank-trial-allegedly-financing-hamas-article-1.1904694 – 8/15/2014.

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Link

17 Sunday Aug 2014

Posted by in Anti-Semitism, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Gaza, Islamic Small Wars, Israel, Middle East, Political Psychology, Regions

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As ethical, apolitical, and professional members of the academic community, we find the open letter for the people in Gaza1 an outrageous diatribe lacking context and deliberate vilification of the sovereign state of Israel and, by extension, every Israeli. In publishing such invective, The Lancet has allowed itself to become a platform for distorted political activism, as has been previously noted by others.2,3 Because we are scientists and physicians who are accustomed to incorporating all data into the formation of educated opinions (even public commentary), we are obliged to redress the imbalance.

http://download.thelancet.com/flatcontentassets/pdfs/S0140673614613143.pdf – 8/15/2014.

An updated reference to the same may be found here under the title, “True about The Lancet – And Shame on It for the Anti-Semitic Knuckleheads It Chose to Support With Its Platform” (July 28, 2014, updated August 17, 2014).

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Another Comment – Gaza and Suzerainty

13 Wednesday Aug 2014

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Gaza, Middle East, Regions

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As Hamas and ISIS and others of the Muslim Botherhood continue to ruin the “Religion of Peace” for its peaceful adherents, the promotion of Mahmoud Abbas has been adopted in some quarters as a make-do path for Gaza’s reconstruction.

Not so fast.

From The Awesome Conversation —

Abbas is a non-starter, a first-rate anti-Semite in his own right, and even though he comes out of the Soviet-post-Soviet pan-Arab Nationalist Era of Thuggery, he has still in mind the destruction of Jewry.

Nope.

The near answer for Gaza — and we are nowhere close to it today, but I believe it’s coming: I am just a little ahead of the story — is local Gazan rule within the confines of Israeli or Israeli-Egyptian suzerainty.

Hamas cannot be Hamas without having in mind the expansion of Islam and elimination of Israel and of world Jewry.

Abbas cannot be Abbas without perpetuating the myth of the benign dictator. The closest I’ve seen to that may be Pervez Musharraf, and it is to be noted that he handed in his stars, left office as a civilian president, and handed the military baton to a general who swore not to interfere with the politics of the state. Ever so slowly, Pakistan has been lurching into the present (while Musharraf has been arrested on trumped past deeds . . . dictatorship — and now his — seems a hard habit to break in some places. 🙂

So my two cents reduced to a half-penny: 1) Free Gaza From Hamas; 2) Occupy, disarm, and transform Gaza into a quasi independent city-state, and 3) assign to Gazans the responsibility of educating their children toward modern and peaceful lives, and 4) leave to the United States, Israel, and Egypt the matter of Gaza’s internal and external security.

Among top reasons for the taming of Abbas (ooh, he would not like that!) is that we (the people of the United States) largely write the paycheck for his own Israeli-training-in-Jordan security force. Beyond that, he hasn’t got a better program to offer anyone than Hamas.

Referring to the latest in plans bandied about, Alan Johnson has suggested in World Affairs (August 12, 2014), “Crucially, it also offers a framework to re-establish the authority of those Palestinians who oppose terror, recognize Israel, and want to negotiate a two-state solution—the Palestinian Authority and its president, Mahmoud Abbas.”

To actually want a sincere “two-state solution” would seem to require a great reduction in the leadership’s reserved (and not so hidden) animus for Jews.

Mahmoud Abbas has had a problem with that.

“Since Ahmadinejad left the political stage, Abu Mazen is the number one leader in injecting anti-Semitic and anti-Israel poison,” Yuval Steinitz told a Tel Aviv security conference Wednesday, using the name by which Abbas is popularly known in Arabic.

“Under Abu Mazen the level of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic incitement in the (Palestinian) Authority has reached new highs, where the bottom line is the destruction of Israel,” said Steinitz, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party.

http://english.al-akhbar.com/node/18454 – 1/30/2014.

Feel welcome to web-search “Mahmoud Abbas, anti-Semite” and let me know know if you find “Abu Mazen’s” inner Martin Luther King.

Gazans, of course, may be expected to have an issue with Israelis for the military operations visited on their sorry heads courtesy of cynical human-shield producing Hamas.

Ask an American southerner about lingering resentments.

Blood has a long afterlife in the land but memory of conditions — of Hamas behaving in a manner ensuring the wasting of lives — proves generally more clarified, more powerful, and more persistent.

Navigational path out of this hell?

First in the heart: eject Hamas and with it the falsely advanced “Palestinian cause” — reference: Efraim Karsh’s Palestine Betrayed (Yale UP, 2010) and others on the industry that has become the “middle east conflict” (never mind all the other concurrent and breathtakingly bloody and cruel middle east conflicts) — and be born again: Gazans!

Then take a fresh look at the neighbor who has been ever ready for peaceful development, humanitarian service, and trade.

One day Gazans will look back at Hamas, which will require looking backward, for to have it otherwise would be like having tried driving somewhere without taking one’s eyes off the rear-view mirror.

Shift

Forward

 Independent

Interdependent

Gaza

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Hamasites – Journalism – The Truth Always Comes Out

13 Wednesday Aug 2014

Posted by in Anti-Semitism, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Israel, Journalism, Middle East, Regions

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Tell you what . . .

From now on, I will tell you what to do with your life (and

in addition to doing what I tell you to do,

you will pay me for the privilege of my leaving you alone).

*

I will tell you what to see and what to hear,

what to say and what to withhold.

When I tell you what is happening around you,

you are to believe me

and no one else.

I am your authority.

I am your only authority.

*

If you are in the news business, good — you can help me!

*

Every time out, you will make me look heroic (which, naturally, I am) and

not show anything to detract from that image.

*

Call me”Hamas”

Acknowledge that I am greater than you.

And I,

at any time, may

Arrest

Detain

Question

Torture

You

Without explanation.

*

If you so much as breath in Gaza,

I

am your world

I

am all the world

You

will know

______

In Spanish, Gutiérrez, who is writing for Melilla Hoy, tweeted, “On Saturday, 9th of August, Hamas launched a battery of rockets from the press hotel. What was their intent? To provoke Israel to kill us?#SaveGazaFromHamas.”

http://www.algemeiner.com/2014/08/12/spanish-journalist-in-gaza-hamas-launched-rockets-from-press-hotel/ – 8/12/2014.

“Since the war started, one population group in Gaza has disappeared from the streets: people in uniform…They work for Hamas and are targets of Israel… Only at the Shifa Hospital, the big hospital in Gaza City, are a few sitting in uniform. There, they feel protected from the Israeli bombings. In addition, that is where they monitor the international press to prevent it from doing ‘wrong’ things. Local camera crews know this, but foreigners do not: Hamas does not want that killed or wounded fighters appear on camera footage.

Yes, there are many civilian casualties and most of the inhabitants of Gaza live in fear, but Hamas likes to exploit this for its PR. ‘He does not dare to talk to you,’ says the wife of someone who has been placed under house arrest because he is known for criticizing Hamas. She too does not dare to tell his story, because ‘we are being watched’.”

http://mfa.gov.il/mfa/foreignpolicy/issues/pages/testimonies-from-gaza-and-hamas-intimidation-of-foreign-journalists.aspx – 8/11/2014.

The media have turned the civilian death toll into the only measure of the justness of the Israeli warfare. The New York Times and Haaretz, for instance, published the Gaza death toll on their front pages every day. The message is clear: The higher the number of civilian casualties, the more “war crimes” Israel is committing.

This measure is groundless. According to its distorted logic, Nazi Germany – which had one million dead civilians in World War II – was the victim of the aggressiveness of the United States, which lost “only” 12,000 civilians, and Britain, which lost “only” 67,000 civilians. This is a logic and ethical failure.

International media failed professionally and ethically in Gaza – http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4557962,00.html – 8/13/2014

The FPA protests in the strongest terms the blatant, incessant, forceful and unorthodox methods employed by the Hamas authorities and their representatives against visiting international journalists in Gaza over the past month,” the statement said. “The international media are not advocacy organizations and cannot be prevented from reporting by means of threats or pressure, thereby denying their readers and viewers an objective picture from the ground.”

http://www.timesofisrael.com/foreign-press-group-condemns-hamas-intimidation-in-gaza/#ixzz3AIUmVbgW 8/11/2014.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/07/31/forty-questions-for-the-international-media-in-gaza/ – 7/31/2014.

An Italian reporter, after leaving Gaza, confirms that it was a Hamas rocket that hit a school playground, killing 10 kids, but Obama sent Hamas 50 million bucks anyway, while he cancelled tourist visa applications for Israelis.

http://pamelageller.com/2014/07/italian-journalist-leaves-gaza-tells-truth-free-hamas-retaliation-hamas-killed-kids.html/#sthash.RNKyb2ak.dpuf – 7/30/2014.

1. The Gaza correspondent of Canada’s Globe and Mail, Patrick Martin, wrote in his article from 20 July: “The presence of militant fighters in Shejaia became clear Sunday afternoon when, under the cover of a humanitarian truce intended to allow both sides to remove the dead and wounded, several armed Palestinians scurried from the scene.Some bore their weapons openly, slung over their shoulder, but at least two, disguised as women, were seen walking off with weapons partly concealed under their robes. Another had his weapon wrapped in a baby blanket and held on his chest as if it were an infant.”

http://blog.unwatch.org/index.php/2014/07/22/hamas-human-shield-tactic-as-reported-by-foreign-journalists/ – 7/22/2014.

As The Guardian reported, the Hamas government in Gaza issued its ban on journalists co-operating or working with Israel’s media due to its “hostility.” It said “offenders will be prosecuted.”

http://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2013/jan/01/press-freedom-hamas – 1/1/2013.

Threats, physical violence and arbitrary arrest and detention by Hamas security forces are common. A score of journalists were arrested or roughed up during 2010 by the Hamas interior ministry’s security service. Such measures oblige Palestinian journalists to censor themselves. In mid-March last year, security forces harshly broke up meetings in the centre of Gaza City organised by the “March 15 Coalition” calling for reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah, and arrested and beat journalists, including about 20 on 15 March 2011. Security forces raided many local and foreign media offices looking for photos of the crackdown.

http://en.rsf.org/predator-hamas-security-forces-in-gaza,42429.html – 2012.

After 15 days he was released. He then made a statement that it is clear that there is a systematic policy practiced by Hamas in the Gaza Strip with the aim of gagging the media by subjecting journalists to arrest, torture and detention in harsh conditions.

http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2012/07/journalist-imprisoned-tortured-by-hamas.html#.U-uumuNdV8E – 7/16/2012.

At least eight journalists were beaten by the Hamas police officers during the rallies. Some had their cameras and laptops confiscated, while others were taken into custody and made to sign a document pledging to refrain from covering such events in the future.

http://www.barenakedislam.com/2011/03/29/gaza-palestinian-women-reporters-beaten-and-tortured-by-hamas/ – 3/29/2011.

Hamas Forces Arrest Two Reporters In Gaza –

http://www.imemc.org/article/62548 – 11/23/2011.

Hamas security services also arrested the journalists: Munir Al-Mawri, Ashraf Abu Khsewan and Mustafa Megdad without informing them of the reasons behind their arrest.

The Hamas’ Internal Security Agency summoned Sunday several Palestinian Journalists including Abdul Karim Haji and Hussein Abdul Jawad Karsou’, without revealing reasons for their arrest.

http://english.pnn.ps/index.php/national/3650-hamas-security-forces-in-gaza-arrest-several-journalists – 1/22/2013.

“The political struggle between Hamas and Fatah has inflicted a great deal of damage on the press in the Palestinian Territories,” Reporters Without Borders said. “Many media have been closed and dozens of journalists have been arrested. In the absence of the rule of law, they have no way of defending themselves. Mahmoud Abbas and Ismael Haniyeh cannot remain silent while this goes on. It is in their own interest to ensure there is room for free speech.”

http://en.rsf.org/palestinian-territories-arbitrary-detention-of-journalists-29-08-2008,28353 – 8/29/2008.

Committee to Protect Journalists, search page on Hamas:

http://www.cpj.org/search.php?cx=002635367788333464843%3A1kfp8mbluhy&cof=FORID%3A9&ie=UTF-8&q=Hamas

Friedman, Matti.  “What the Media Gets Wrong About Israel: The news tells us less about Israel than the people writing the news, a former AP reporter says.”  The Atlantic, November 30, 2014.

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Impromptu – “Kurdistan! Israel! USA!”

10 Sunday Aug 2014

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Iraq, Islamic Small Wars, Israel, Kurdistan, Middle East, Politics, Regions

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(Posted 8/10/2014; Event: 8/9/2014)

Israel-Kurd Magazine, Issue No. 1 – 2009

There is some horrible news out of Kurdistan today. Ekurd.net reports that Mawloud Afand, editor of an Israel-Kurdish magazine called Israel Kurd “disappeared ten days ago in [the] Kurdistan region of Iraq.” Israeli news sources say he was kidnapped by Iranian intelligence in the city of Sulaimaniyah. Ekurd.net claims that Iran had told the Kurdish government to shut Israel Kurd down and it refused.

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/06/25/iran-kidnaps-pro-israeli-kurd-iraq-mawloud-afand/ – 6/25/2012

Related: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/topic/israel-kurd-magazine/ – 7/16/2012.

ERBIL-Hewlêr, Kurdistan region ‘Iraq’, — A number of Israeli political experts say Israel will be among the countries that would support Iraqi Kurdistan if it declared independence. They also suggest that Kurdistan not make the decision hastily and ensure the grounds are properly prepared first, Rudaw reported

http://www.ekurd.net/mismas/articles/misc2012/5/state6172.htm 5/1/2012.

Furthermore, with their initial sale last week of a tanker full of oil, to Israel no less, the Kurds have shown that they are willing not just to cleave themselves from Baghdad but to stand as a magnanimous force for stability in the region.

According to numerous reports by Reuters, Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal, the tanker SCF Altai transferred a cargo of Kurdish oil from another tanker United Emblem, which had been plying the Mediterranean for two weeks after loading at the Turkish port of Ceyhan. The SCF Altai then docked at the Israeli city of Ashkelon and off-loaded its crude.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2014/06/23/iraqs-kurds-sell-oil-to-israel-move-closer-to-independence/ – 6/23/2014.

In 1966, Iraqi defense minister Abd al-Aziz al-Uqayli blamed the Kurds of Iraq for seeking to establish “a second Israel” in the Middle East. He also claimed that “the West and the East are supporting the rebels to create [khalq] a new Israeli state in the north of the homeland as they had done in 1948 when they created Israel. It is as if history is repeating itself.”

http://www.meforum.org/3838/israel-kurds – Summer 2014.

What attracts me to a story like this one is the possibility of encouraging and securing ethnic self-determination for a true ethnic minority.  In that regard, Kurds and Israelis may understand one another.  The above scholarly piece by Ofra Bengio goes into detail on the history of the Kurdish-Israeli relationship, and that in turn informs just a little bit how it has turned out that members of the Kurdish community seeing an Israeli group in Lafayette Park (in front of the White House) would (naturally) join them in solidarity.

Update November 12, 2014

http://www.algemeiner.com/2014/11/10/canadian-israeli-woman-fighting-with-kurds-against-isis-audio/ – 11/10/2014

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