First of all, I’m shocked to find out from Stim that “Izzy” was Asper’s nickname. Because that was my nickname as a child from the paternal side of the family. Coincidence? Yes, totally.
Incidentally, Comcast is planning to soon bulk up by taking over NBC-Universal. And you thought it was going to end with the latter.
But, this is an excellent segway into all things Israeli.
What has the country been up to? Other than bombing a few more settlements - the whole set-fire-to-the-apples-to-kill-the-worms strategy - it has also gone ahead with planning more settlements in Al Quds. Even the French were a bit miffed. As always, there’s more than meets the eye. Israel has what’s known as a heinous plan afoot.
People go on about Palestinian Jihad, but few seem to notice the very obvious Israeli apartheid going on in the area. It blows the mind how people can look the other way on the flippin’ bombing of a school.
Palestinians are responding the only way they can in their weakened state - by doing things like boycotting goods made in settlements. But even this is becoming tough because of labeling tricks that the companies employ.
So strange what labeling does. For instance how, if there were some kind of Arab prison somewhere in, say Yemen, where Anglos got tortured, it’d over the news in every country in this hemisphere. But the Brits have set one up in Iraq where the lads have been, shall we say, a tad precocious a-la Abu Gharaib. I didn’t mention Abu G for comparison’s sake. They actually studied pictures from the latter prison to figure out how to best molest their prisoners.
The Brits have at least some semblance of journalism left in their country. Channel 4 took a look at the shadowy Israel lobby that stalks Parliament. Quick FYI on how to join the lobby - be a former settlement consultant to Israel.
The Lebanese arrested another Israeli spy. “Another” is the key word there. And again, the news of his apprehension was not quite picked up the way a Leb spy in Israel would have been.
I have to be honest and mention that the Israeli leadership are not the only blight in the region. Take a look at the Arab countries supposedly alligned to the cause of Palestinian statehood - they’re in a daze of privatization and greed. Those run by monarchies, such as Jordan, are busy just raking in wealth since they know that the time of such government is quite rather nigh. There’s a reason why all the good property in Lyon belongs to the Emirati royal family.
Those that are semi-somewhat-(let’s be serious, not really)-democratic are doing very undemocratic things. Saudi, which said that it is on a drive to nationalize, democratize and privatize, is doing two of those things but not the third. It is also bombing the Mo out of Yemenis whilst using some half-baked excuse that the rebel Yemeni leader has something to do with Shi’ites from two years ago that hatched a plot with Iran to create a Shi’ite state in the region something something blithering something. At least Saudi isn’t hiding under the old Houthi rebels = Al Qaeda excuse.
On the western side of things, as expected, countries are turning a blind eye to (almost - read above) everything Israel does. Apparently rebels in Afghanistan’s Waziristan region might be using Israeli weapons. Nothing to see there. And by the way, the little shock doctrine experiment gone Afghanistan is going exactly as it should - the minister of mines is being accused of taking bribes from China for selling off concessions to the latter. How do you like capitalism Afghanistan? Do you love it yet?
You can’t expect anything but the blind eye from the Americans. They’re quite out of it even with their own little methods. Apparently waterboarding was used as long as a century ago on Filipino rebels by the Americans. And it’s still in use today. And somehow abayas are outdated?
In Canada, our man Harper is more concerned with trading partnerships with the up-and-coming Indian and Chinese powerhouses. So much for anything there.
Coverage of the Middle East has instead largely been about the “good” stories. Xmas is around the corner and we can’t be all negative Nancies now. Things like the hummus contest out there between Israel and the rest of the region.
Coming from a city where I’ve seen good-natured hummus-and-khubs-eating kids slowly turn into McDonalds-and-KFC-chomping maniacs, this speaks a lot to me. So nip this in the bud: forget the hummus and grab some moutabal instead.
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