The Arab People Arise for Freedom, While US Sleeps While Freedom is Curtailed

Juan Cole catches the irony of our times. While US history still inspires the aspirations for freedom world wide, Americans seem content to watch TV while their freedoms and futures are stolen from them.

Image via WikipediaOn Friday, the US Congress endeavored to decide whether American democracy has irretrievably broken down because the representatives of the Billionaires refused to compromise with the representatives of the People (“cutting spending” while “cutting taxes” means “shifting the cost of running society to the middle class from the filthy rich”). The answer was that it had not, as long as the representatives of the People showed sufficient deference to the Billionaires, shuffling, keeping their eyes down, and obediently emptying their pockets. The middle class, successfully distracted by racial and religious hatreds and by attempts to impose patriarchal fundamentalism, was wreathed in vapid smiles as the billionaires sent movers to their homes to pick up the belongings they had just fleeced from them via their enforcers, the tea baggers.
As Americans rushed to surrender their constitutional rights, the peoples of the Middle East rose up from Libya to Iraq to demand those very rights for themselves– freedom of speech, religion, the press, and assembly, as well as safeguards against a secret police state that engages in routine unreasonable search and seizure and imposes cruel and unusual punishments while keeping prisoners hidden, denied habeas corpus, and often denied a speedy civil trial or even a trial at all.

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Muslim Brotherhood Join Egypt Talks as Hamas Begins to Shake

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I never thought I'd see this day.

Members of the Muslim Brotherhood joined other opposition groups meeting with Vice President Omar Suleiman on Sunday in what seemed a significant departure in the nation’s uprising and political history.
The Brotherhood is an outlawed Islamist organization often depicted by the authorities as committed to the overthrow of the secular order in the heart of the Middle East. Official attitudes toward it here have swung between outright repression and reluctant tolerance. But it has remained Egypt’s biggest opposition force against the autocratic rule of President Hosni Mubarak.
After the meeting had started, The Associated Press said that talks included some of the top issues for the opposition — including freedom of the press and the release of those detained since anti-government protests started — as well as agreement to begin setting up a structure to study amending the country’s constitution.
A spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood, Gamal Nassar, said the huge and sometimes violent demonstrations that have paralyzed Cairo for 13 days, reverberating around the Middle East, would continue “until the political path can have a role in achieving the aspirations of the protesters” — an apparent reference to their goal of removing Mr. Mubarak.
Mr. Nassar said mediators had brokered the encounter with Mr. Suleiman, who Saturday received public backing from the Obama administration and other Western governments that confirmed him as the West’s choice to guide any transfer of power.
“The brothers decided to enter a round of dialogue to determine how serious the officials are achieving the demands of the people,” Mr. Nassar said. “The regime keeps saying we’re open to dialogue and the people are the ones refusing, so the Brotherhood decided to examine the situation from all different sides.”

So do you suppose Israel will talk to Hamas? er...  Maybe Hamas is in trouble now.

Ripple effects of the Egyptian uprising are now spreading to Gaza, where some groups are planning a new rally next week. Moves by some Gazans to mimic protesters in Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen by taking to the streets are making the Hamas government nervous.
Government officials sponsored an official rally in solidarity with the Egyptian protesters earlier, but when a small group of journalists and bloggers organized their own, six women and eight men were arrested. Two of the women, known for their outspoken criticism of the regime, were beaten up.

And with Al Jazeera, bombed by US plans in Iraq, banned at various times by the Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egyptian, Palestinian Authority, I suspect they may be the future of journalism and one of the few places you can get news without the spin of the plutocracy.

Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood has cast doubt on the government's willingness to follow through on promised reforms, following talks with authorities aimed at ending the country's political crisis.
One of the group's leaders told Al Jazeera that the Muslim Brotherhood does not trust the government to make its proposed changes - a development that came as pro-democracy rallies continued across the country on Sunday - the 13th day of protests in Egypt.
Tens of thousands of protesters observed a "day of the martyrs" in Cairo's Tahrir Square - the focal point of the protests - calling for an end to Hosni Mubarak's 30-year rule.
Al Jazeera correspondent Ayman Mohyeldin, who was at the square, was arrested by the military on Sunday afternoon, prompting calls from the channel and international media-rights groups for his release. He was released nine hours later.
The army fired tracer rounds into the air at a cordon they had set up near the Egyptian Museum, an Al Jazeera correspondent in the square reported late on Sunday evening. An army tank also moved towards the 6th of October bridge, where protesters often gather, he said.
Both Muslims and Christians held prayers at the square for the victims of the uprising.

The world has changed a lot in the past couple weeks. Muslims were killing Coptic Christians a couple weeks ago.

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Israelis "Executed" US Citizen Furkan Dogan

 The UN report found that 6 persons where murdered execution style by Israeli Defense Forces on the Mavi Marmara on May 31, 2010 when activists tried to land supplies to break blockade in Gaza. Just yesterday, another ship carrying Jewish activists from Israel, Germany, the United States and Britain has set sail for Gaza from Cyprus.

The report of the fact-finding mission of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on the Israeli attack on the Gaza flotilla released last week shows conclusively, for the first time, that US citizen Furkan Dogan and five Turkish citizens were murdered execution-style by Israeli commandos.

The report reveals that Dogan, the 19-year-old US citizen of Turkish descent, was filming with a small video camera on the top deck of the Mavi Marmara when he was shot twice in the head, once in the back and in the left leg and foot and that he was shot in the face at point blank range while lying on the ground.

The report says Dogan had apparently been "lying on the deck in a conscious or semi-conscious, state for some time" before being shot in his face.

The forensic evidence that establishes that fact is "tattooing around the wound in his face," indicating that the shot was "delivered at point blank range."  The report describes the forensic evidence as showing that "the trajectory of the wound, from bottom to top, together with a vital abrasion to the left shoulder that could be consistent with the bullet exit point, is compatible with the shot being received while he was lying on the ground on his back."

Based on both "forensic and firearm evidence," the fact-finding panel concluded that Dogan's killing and that of five Turkish citizens by the Israeli troops on the Mavi Marmari May 31 "can be characterized as extra-legal, arbitrary and summary executions." (See Report [.pdf] Page 38, Section 170)

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Why a young Israeli woman spies on Israeli settlements in West Bank

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The most disturbing part of this story is not just that the Israeli government says one thing and does another, but that every government and anyone else paying attention knows it. Yet no one on the world stage says anything so everyone can hear it.

Hagit Ofran tracks Israeli settlement growth in the West Bank with a pocket-sized camera and a deep sense of mission, often making news well beyond Israel with her findings.

Jewish settlers rebuild the Migron unauthorized settlement outpost in the West Bank after it was demolished by Israeli troops, April 27. Hagit Ofran, a former student of Jewish history, uses a four-wheel drive vehicle, pocket-sized camera, and a deep sense of mission to monitor the growth of Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
(Alessio Romenzi/AP)

By Ben Lynfield, Correspondent
posted July 28, 2010 at 10:10 am EDT

Alon settlement, West Bank —

If Palestinians ever achieve the viable state to which they aspire, they will have a determined young Israeli activist to thank for its territory not being entirely swallowed by Israeli settlements.

Hagit Ofran, a former student of Jewish history, uses a four-wheel drive vehicle, pocket-sized camera, and a deep sense of mission to monitor the growth of Israeli settlements in the West Bank area captured during the 1967 Six Day War. Sometimes her findings make headlines well beyond Israel, translating into international pressure on the government to stop further encroachment on Palestinian land.

Ms. Ofran's official title is director of the Settlement Watch Team of the dovish Peace Now organization. In practice, she is a spy operating in hostile territory, snooping, sniffing, and piecing together bits of intelligence to gauge how much illicit building is going on.

IN PICTURES: Israeli settlements

On a recent scouting trip, Ofran spotted four new alabaster trailers spread like matchboxes on a hillside of the Alon settlement northeast of Jerusalem.

The prefabricated buildings are in effect helping to fragment the heartland of a future Palestine. ''It's not that one caravan will change the chances of Middle East peace,'' says Ofran. ''But another and another and another will determine whether we can have a two-state solution to the conflict or not.''

[...]

Ofran is up against a system that, although government-sponsored, lacks transparency. Much of its activity is illegal even according to Israeli law and settler leaders prefer to avoid public debate over it. Construction also violates the Geneva Convention and runs counter to international commitments Israel made to halt settlement building, for example in the 2003 international peace blueprint known as the road map. Tellingly, there is no distinct budget for building at settlements.

''The money is woven into a thousand other pieces of the budget. So you can't use the simple path of reading the budget to find out what's going on.'' says Israeli historian Gershom Gorenberg, author The Accidental Empire, a book about the origins of the settlements.

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Historic UNSC Condemnation of Israel, and of Gaza Blockade; World Body Demands release of Aid Activists, Ships

Juan Cole provides a critically important news report that was absent from TV news. Guess why.

In a rare public denunciation of Israel, the United Nations Security Council on Monday condemned the Israeli raid on the Gaza aid flotilla and deplored the loss of innocent life that attended it. The world body insisted that Israel immediately release the 480 humanitarians it had taken captive, and demanded that it also let their ships go. The UNSC also instructed Israel to lift its blockade of the Gaza Strip, calling the siege “not sustainable.” Although the statement was weaker than the text urged by Turkey and the Arab world, it was brutal compared to the anodyne language usually insisted upon by Washington when it comes to Israel.

This development is head-spinning in its implications. The United States almost never allows UNSC resolutions condemning Israel to go forward (though this text was admittedly a presidential statement rather than a full resolution). But here it is clear that President Barack Obama instructed his ambassador to the UN to join in the condemnation of the Israeli “acts.” Since Turkey is currently a non-permanent member of the UNSC and led the charge on the condemnation of Israel, it is possible that the US felt it had to trade horses with Ankara if it has any chance of still getting a UNSC resolution tightening sanctions on Iran (a step that Turkey opposes, as does Brazil, though neither has a veto). It is also possible that Israel’s rash attack has sabotaged the Obama administration’s push for increased UN sanctions on Iran, hardening opposition to an Israel-driven policy toward Tehran.

The UN Assistant Secretary General for Political Affairs, Argentina’s Oscar Fernandez-Taranco, gave us some idea of the UNSC’s thinking when he called on Israel on Monday to end its “counterproductive” and “unacceptable” blockade of the Gaza Strip. He pointed out that the fiasco around the Israeli commando attack on the civilian aid flotilla would not have occurred had there been no blockade in the first place. The demand that Israel give up the siege of Gaza was repeated by the United Kingdom and by Brazil. (Nick Clegg, the new LibDem deputy prime minister of the UK, has long been a vocal critic of Israeli policies toward the Palestinian West Bank and Gaza.)

As long as Israel, therefore, continues its blockade of the general Gaza population, it is no less in contravention of the United Nations Security Council instructions than Saddam Hussein was with regard to his weapons programs in the early 1990s.

While gathering the details of how some 16 humanitarian aid activists were killed and dozens were wounded by Israeli soldiers is important, above all for the sake of justice toward the idealistic persons mown down, it is far more important that the episode produce an end to the lockdown of the 1.5 million Gazans, who have been placed by the Israeli government in a sort of open-air penitentiary.

Contrary to the assertions of far-right Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman, the Palestinians of Gaza, stripped of any citizenship and lacking any basic human rights, face continual shortages of medicine, medical equipment, electricity and even of food. They face crushing poverty and unemployment, along with inadequate hospitals. Many are still homeless after the Israelis destroyed their homes in the Gaza War, and they are being denied cement for rebuilding. They are not allowed to have a harbor or an airport. They are cut off from the market for their goods in Egypt, Jordan and the rest of the Arab world. As Uri Avnery points out, Israeli pledged in the Oslo accords 18 years ago to allow a deep water port for Gaza on the Mediterranean. Instead, it is assaulting even small aid vessels attempting to land at the pitiful excuse for a port.

The blockade is shameful. It is a gross violation of the international law governing the treatment of Occupied populations. And now the Security Council has roundly condemned it and insisted that it be lifted.

The Israeli peace organization, Gush Shalom, demonstrated in front of the detention center where the aid activists were being held..

There are no new details of the Israeli assault on the humanitarian aid flotilla early Monday morning, largely because the 480 eyewitnesses had been sequestered by the Israelis. Some, including an 81-year-old former US ambassador, a Turkish woman with a baby, and a former US navy sailor who had been on the USS Liberty when the Israelis attacked it in 1967, are now trickling home. The whereabouts and condition of many others is unconfirmed, including European parliamentarians, Nobelists, and Swedish mystery writer Henning Mankell (whose anti-imperialist novel The Man from Beijing I just read and enjoyed.)

The incident could have implications for the future relationship of Israel to the European Union. Irish Minister of Foreign Affairs Micheal Martin hinted that Dublin might go so far as to cut expel the Israeli ambassador, thus cutting off diplomatic relations with Tel Aviv. Some 8 Irish citizens are among Israel’s prisoners, and one of these humanitarians, Fiachra O’Luain, is said by his father to have been wounded by Israeli gunplay. Martin thundered, “These citizens did not enter Israel illegally — they were essentially kidnapped from international waters, taken into Israel and are being asked to sign documents saying they entered illegally.”

The other big casualty of the Israeli raid may well be the special relationship between Turkey and Israel, as the BBC says. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan condemned the raid as “state terrorism.”

Thousands of demonstrators also gathered to chant against Israel in Baghdad, inspired by Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Interior Minister Jawad Bulani, serving in the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, said, “We want to send a message to the Palestinians to let them know they are not alone and that the Iraqis are with them . . . What is going on is a vicious crime. The international community must condemn it and take responsible action against them. This is the stand of all Iraqis, officially and publically.”

Historians may look back on the Marmara raid as the moment a new order began emerging in the Middle East, grouping Turkey with Iran, Syria, Iraq and Palestine rather than with Washington and Tel Aviv.

Aljazeera English has video on the world condemnation of the Marmara raid.

The enforced silence of the flotilla activists, in Israeli custody, has allowed Israeli spokesmen to shape the narrative of events for American news media. Former CIA analyst Ray Close blames President Obama for not being tougher with Israeli PM Binyamin Netanyahu to begin with, arguing that coddling the Likud leader led to this atrocity. As Jonathan Cook points out, the Israeli authorities have still not announced a definitive list of those killed and wounded by their commandos.

In response to Israeli official pronouncements, Amnesty International said, “Israel says its forces acted in self-defence, alleging that they were attacked by protestors, but it begs credibility that the level of lethal force used by Israeli troops could have been justified. It appears to have been out of all proportion to any threat posed.” 

Raw video posted to Youtube from the initial phase of the Israeli boarding of the Turkish vessel, Mavi Marmara demonstrates that as the Israeli commandos approached the ship, they were laying down suppressive fire and at that point killed two individuals aboard the ship. Even after the ship ran up a white flag, the Israelis continued to use live ammunition along with stun grenades and tear gas.

See Stephen C. Webster’s analysis of this video of the boarding:

If the crew and passengers of the Mavi Marmara were coming under fire and had taken casualties in the initial phase of the Israeli approach, that horror would help explain why some actively resisted the boarding and that in turn would explain the contextless snippet of video released by the Israeli army of Israeli commandos being fought as they commandeered the vessel. If the passengers thought the Israeli military had murderous intentions toward them, some would obviously attempt to forestall the boarding. It is also possible that there were no deaths on the other ships because they were boarded later and after the Israeli helicopter gunship crews had learned that suppressive fire during the initial approach was unnecessary and counterproductive, and so they ceased that tactic.

It is unclear why the commandos behaved in this way with regard to the Mavi Marmara in the first place, but it is possible that they believed their own propaganda. The Turkish aid ships were supported by a Muslim fundamentalist charity in Turkey, IHH, that has been accused of being sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood and to Hamas, and in Israeli eyes that orientation would make them terrorists. So perhaps the commandos assumed they were boarding a ship full of Hamas operatives. In reality, it was just idealistic humanitarians. But even they could be provoked to active resistance if they thought they were about to be shot down.

It is a sign of to what depths the pride of the Israeli military has fallen that it is complaining of attempts to “lynch” its soldiers (none of whom was killed, while as many as 16 humanitarian aid workers appear to be dead). This is the Israeli army of the 1967 Six Days War and of Entebbe? They were in danger of being lynched as they boarded a small civilian vessel? Of course, they could have avoided this menace by simply not being uninvited on a ship in international waters. And, it is pretty obvious who is actually being lynched– the people of Gaza and anyone who objects to them being half-starved by the Israeli blockade.

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Turkey Promises to Send Supplies to Gaza With Naval Escort

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

This situation worsens by the day.

This post originally appeared on Booman Tribune.
Well, now Israel has done it. They have actually provoked Turkey to the point that they may start a war over this incident massacre:

Turkey has threatened Israel with unprecedented action after Israeli forces attacked an aid vessel, killing 10 peace activists headed to Gaza.Israel said 10 people died while those on the ship said at least 15 were killed.

A shocked world has responded with outrage. Turkey recalled its ambassador to Israel and warned of unprecedented and incalculable reprisals.
Two Turkish activists were reported to be among those killed in the flotilla. Ankara warned that further supply vessels will be sent to Gaza, escorted by the Turkish Navy, a development with unpredictable consequences.
Israel has sounded an alert throughout the country fearing rocket attacks by Hezbollah in Lebanon.

If Turkey is promising to send new supplies with naval escort, then we’re headed for an epic showdown between two of Americas closest allies. I don’t think Obama is getting too much rest and relaxation this Memorial Day.
Meanwhile, the Arab League will meet tomorrow and put immense pressure on Egypt to lift their portion of the Gazan blockade. I can’t imagine that Egypt will refuse. In fact, I think Israel has jeopardized their peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan.
All this, and for what? To keep construction materials from the Gazan people? Israel is not behaving in anything resembling a rational manner. They just lost the only friends they had not named America. And who can help them now but Big Daddy? The problem is that Big Daddy has more to consider than Israeli’s deluded interests. We have to worry about our own image and international relationships.

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Saudi: Airstrikes near Yemen targeted infiltrators

The Saudi-Yemen border heats up. The conflict is not between the two countries, but that Yemen can't control it's own border. The two countries share a concern about Shiite insurgents funded by Tehran.

Saudi: Airstrikes near Yemen Targeted Infiltrators:

Image via Wikipedia

"Saudi Arabia said Friday it carried out airstrikes against 'infiltrators' from Yemen that were limited to areas inside Saudi territory, and vowed to press on with the military action until the border with its restive neighbor was secure.

The statement, carried by the official Saudi Press Agency, did not identify the infiltrators or address claims by Arab diplomats on Thursday that the strikes hit across the boundary, targeting Shiite rebels who have been battling Yemeni government forces for the past few months in Yemen's northern Saada province."

The SPA statement stressed the Saudi military action was confined to areas within the kingdom's borders.

In Yemen, however, a military official said Saudi forces on Friday continued to shell rebel positions in Saada. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to journalists.

Regardless of the location of the bombardment, the offensive threatens to embroil Riyadh in a conflict that has for months been a major source of worry for the oil-rich kingdom.

Riyadh has been concerned about a spillover of the Yemeni fighting, of Iran's alleged involvement in the conflict and of the possibility that Yemen-based al-Qaida militants could capitalize on the tense situation by smuggling fighters across the long and difficult-to-control border.

More broadly, it raises concerns of another proxy war in the Middle East between Iran and Saudi Arabia, a key U.S. ally.

The Yemeni government has accused Shiite Iran of aiding the rebels while the rebels have accused Sunni Saudi Arabia, Iran's fiercest regional rival, of carrying out bombing runs against them.

The same dynamic has played out in various forms in Lebanon, where Iran supports the Shiite militant Hezbollah and Saudi Arabia favors a U.S.-backed faction, and in Iraq, where Saudi Arabia and Iran have thrown support to conflicting sides in the Sunni-Shiite fault-line.

The Arab diplomats and Yemeni rebels said Saudi fighter jets and artillery bombardments hit across the border into northern Yemen on Thursday - the first reported Saudi incursion into Yemen in years.

The northern rebels, known as Hawthis, have been battling Yemeni government forces the past few months in the latest flare-up of a sporadic five-year conflict. They claim their needs are ignored by a Yemeni government that is increasingly allied with hard-line Sunni fundamentalists, who consider Shiites heretics.

The rebels said the Saudi airstrikes hit five areas in their northern stronghold but it was not possible to independently verify the reports. They said there were dead and wounded and that homes were destroyed. The rebels' spokesman said people were afraid to get near the areas being bombed, making it difficult to count the casualties.

The SPA statement quoted an unidentified Saudi official as saying the Saudi offensive was prompted by an attack Tuesday by infiltrators from Yemen on Saudi border guards in the Mount Dokhan area that killed one Saudi soldier and wounded eleven.

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Is the End Near for the Right-Wing's Vice Grip on U.S. Israeli Policy?

J-Street, vilified by the right and the Right Wing-Nut Christian dominionists who are trying to provoke Armageddon, the peace and reconciliation focused lobby for younger moderate to progressive American Jews goes center stage with Obama's National Security Advisor giving the keynote. Yes, things not the same in the relationship between Israel and the US today. No more Israeli and Iranian spies sneaking around the White House.

Image via Wikipedia

This week, retired Marine Corps Gen. Jim Jones, Barack Obama's national security adviser, will keynote the inaugural J Street Conference, billed as a gathering of "progressive pro-Israel, pro-peace" activists.

The event marks the emergence of the moderate Jewish advocacy group that aspires to be a counterweight to the voices of the traditionally hawkish "pro-Israel" lobby in Washington.

The White House's decision last week to send Jones to address the event was a small move that might have a significant impact on the overheated politics of the Middle East.

In the months before, a full-throated "swift boat" campaign had been launched against J Street in an attempt to vilify and delegitimize the group as belonging to the fringe, despite its advocacy of a moderate, or at most slightly left-of center, approach to U.S. policy in the Middle East.

The conservative media offered a steady drumbeat of dubious charges, and a campaign had been under way to warn members of Congress away from the event. And it appeared to be having some impact as several members of Congress pulled out of the conference in the weeks leading up to the event (a total of 10 reportedly dropped out, according to reports, but not all in response to outside pressure).

It was an attempt to nip J Street in the bud and preserve the hegemony established lobbying groups like American Israel Public Affairs Committee have long enjoyed in the halls of Congress.

At stake was not only the definition of what it means to be "pro-Israel" -- long synonymous with supporting the more hawkish end of Israel's political spectrum (despite American Jews' general tendency to lean left) -- but also, and more importantly, the ability of established lobbying groups to claim to speak for the American Jewish community as a whole.

More via Is the End Near for the Right-Wing's Vice Grip on U.S. Israeli Policy? | | AlterNet.

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What Future has Kurdistan? Regional War?

Kurdistan in Iraq has been relatively peaceful since 1991 except for a brief civil war in the mid-90s. They operate essentially an independent entity aligned in mostly name only to Iraq conducting their own commerce, and providing their own service, as well as maintaining their own independent army, the infamous Peshmerga, known as the most effective fighting force in the region. This article reviews the history of Kurdistan, divided by the peace treaty at the end of WWI between Turkey, Iran, and Iraq. This border divided people represent a major risk for a regional conflict.

Image via Wikipedia

As, over time, the KRG fuses with the once-rival ruling parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), and trade increases rapidly with Turkey and, to a lesser degree, with Iran and Syria, the notion of a sovereign Iraqi Kurdish state becomes more plausible while making the fantasy of reunification of "Greater Kurdistan" much less so.

Kurdistan cannot escape its landlocked geography quadrisected in the ashes of World War I. The roughly 35 million ethnic Kurds are the world's largest ethnic group without their own country. Iraqi Kurdistan's ruling politicians and their corresponding corporate interests are now shuttling between the central government in Baghdad and various regional capitals to feel out which way the winds of change are blowing.

The Kurds have been caught in a web of wildly varying, intolerant nationalisms for most of the post-Ottoman era from which they have not been able to escape. The most significant of these is Turkey's secular and militarist Kemalism. Mustafa Kemal, known as Ataturk the "Father of Turks", replaced the unifying Islam of the dying Ottoman caliphate with so-called "Turkishness".

Millions of Kurds, in what would become the Turkish Republic, were to be absurdly labeled "Mountain Turks". Ataturk insisted on doing away with any cultural practice related to the caliphate, including the tolerance of linguistic and religious minorities under its jurisdiction.

The newly created Turkey, forged in 1923, left no room for "Kurdishness" and Turkey's Kurds began rebelling almost at once. The 1979 Islamic Revolution in neighboring Iran did away with the enforced secularism of the Pahlavi dynasty and enshrined a form of Shi'itism as the state ideology around which the nascent Islamic Republic was formed.

The then-new Iranian regime presented itself to the outside world as a pious Persian Shi'ite monolith, leaving little room for Iran's restive, mostly Sunni Kurdish minority. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's unorthodox interpretation of traditional Shi'itism and the creation of the velayat-e-faqih ("The rule of the jurisprudent" - considered an unwelcome innovation by much of the Shi'ite clerical establishment) left the Kurds of Iran's Kordestan and Western Azerbaijan provinces disaffected even more so.

The takeover of Iraq and Syria by Ba'athists in the 1960s led to the rise of a myopic pan-Arabism in Baghdad and Damascus that left no room for the Kurds' distinct language, culture and traditions. The Cold War Arab socialism of the Ba'ath party was, for the Kurds, simply more ethno-chauvinist demagoguery, that, as in Turkey and Iran, was bent on the destruction of their massive stateless nation.

One of the only identifying factors that these highly divergent ideologies of Kemalism, Khomenism and Ba'athism had in common was their policy of constant Kurdish repression. Internal jingoistic state policies being carried out in their respective Kurdish-majority regions in the name of law and order over the decades have now morphed across borders into external forces of political expediency unifying Turkey, Syria and Iran on the suppression of their respective "Kurdish questions".

Along with all of the external historic forces allied against them, the Kurds themselves are also internally divided by dialect, tribe and clan. In the case of Iraqi Kurdistan, these divisions translated into political allegiances that have now formed the backbone of the KRG.



Save for the very short-lived, Soviet-backed Republic of Mahabad in 1946, the Irbil-based KRG is the closest thing any of the Kurds in Kurdistan's four sectors have to an independent state. As Turkey's hopes for full-scale European Union accession have been fading into the background, Turkey's relations with Iran, Iraq and Syria have greatly improved.

Syria, which for a time once supported PKK insurgents in a petty proxy struggle with Turkey regarding disputes over water usage rights, has long since dropped all known tolerance of Turkish Kurd fighters operating from Syrian territory. Turkey has come to the realization that as much as it has looked Westward from Ataturk's secularist revolution onward, it has no choice but to integrate a higher level of cooperation with its less stable borderlands to the south and east.

Oil flowing north into Turkey from Iraq, and water flowing south into Syria and Iraq, defies Turkey's past isolation from Middle Eastern issues and may slow its Europeanization. Syria's realization that it needs Turkish cooperation on water caused the Bashar al-Assad regime to quickly snuff out its support of the PKK in Syrian Kurdistan, espoused by his late father. In so doing, Damascus has produced a remarkable thaw in Turkish-Syrian relations.

[..]
Turkish warplanes are striking PKK positions from above while Iran is firing Katuysha batteries at PJAK positions over the ridgeline from the Iranian side of the border. The Turkish and Iranian goals in the area appear to be the same and it seems to serve both Ankara and Tehran to conflate the two groups. The PKK rebels have also made statements in the press contradicting what was recently told to this correspondent by the PJAK regarding its operational independence from the PKK.

The United States government has been supplying Turkey with "actionable intelligence" [2] to target PKK outposts in Iraqi territory which the PJAK told Asia Times Online was being shared with the Iranians. Allegations that Turkey is passing on classified US intelligence to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps cannot be going down well at the Pentagon.

Turkey and Iran, at odds since Iran's revolution in 1979 collided with Turkey's rigid secularism, have a common foe in their shared attacks on Kurdish irredentists sheltering in Iraq.

Rojhilat told Asia Times Online that for the two opposing state ideologies, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend", in reference to their dislike of the Kurds in their midst.

Last week, Turkey's parliament ratified a renewal of the mandate allowing its military to continue to strike Iraqi territory [3] and further coordination with Tehran may become the norm. The PJAK states that it seeks to topple the Islamic Republic to replace it with an inclusive, federal democracy - but the group does not maintain secessionist sentiments in the immediate term. The PJAK claims to have broad support among the Kurds of northwestern Iran and the EU's Kurdish diaspora. At least one of the men I met had arrived in Qandil from Finland to take up arms against Iran.

For now, the PKK and the PJAK maintain their hearty guerrilla bases in the Qandil Mountains, while Irbil continues to look the other way. For the stateless Kurdish revolutionaries launching operations out of Iraq's hinterlands, the tolerance of their bases could evaporate as the Kurds of Iraq assert themselves and Baghdad's unstable politics continue to evolve.

The prospect of an internationally recognized Kurdish state carved out of northern Iraq may seem far-fetched at present to many, but Iraqi Kurdish elites are harboring contingencies for such an eventuality. This scenario would make quite a bitter pill for Turkey, Iran and Syria to swallow and the independence of one sector may forever negate the potential for secession of the other three.

So while Iraqi Kurdistan elects its own parliament, forges oil contracts independent of Baghdad and prepares for its future, the "other" Kurdistan still seethes with repression and rage from nation-states that have refused to accept the Kurdish realities existing within their borders.

via Asia Times Online :: Middle East News, Iraq, Iran current affairs.

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Palestinian leaders warn of 'third intifada' over Jerusalem

The racist Likud government of Israel has signaled it will annex Jerusalem and continue to steal other land on the West Bank. They may be able to argue that they abandoned Gaza and got a war, but now the Palestinians fear past proposals to split East Jerusalem off to allow both to have a piece is now dead. Fatah makes peace and loses East Jerusalem and much of the West Bank, what recourse do they have?

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Palestinian leaders on Thursday called for a one-day general strike and warned of more street protests over Jerusalem, but Israel played down the risk of an uprising despite two weeks of tension in the occupied city. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah faction made the call for the strike on Friday in Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank, and Palestinian leaders warned of the likelihood of a battle ahead of Friday prayers at Al-Aqsa Mosque.

The compound housing the mosque is a holy place for both Muslims and Jews, and has often been a flashpoint. Israeli security forces control access to the area and regularly prohibit young Muslim men from entering the holy site in Jerusalem’s Old City, citing security grounds.

Tensions rose two weeks ago when police and protesters clashed near Al-Aqsa Mosque on the eve of the Jewish holiday Yom Kippur. What triggered the incident remains unclear, but the dispute over access to the holy site was at the root of it.

A beefed-up Israeli police presence, and a relatively small turnout of Palestinian protesters, has kept violence under control in ensuing clashes since late September.

Palestinians in senior positions have warned of the risk of a “third intifada,” or general uprising. But Israel has tried to avoid getting involved in any war of words over Jerusalem.

[..] King Abdullah of Jordan, who plays a key part in management of Al-Aqsa, said in an interview with Israel’s Haaretz newspaper that Jerusalem was “a tinderbox” that could explode with reverberations felt throughout the Muslim world. 

Mohammad Dahlan, a leader in Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah faction charged that Israel “has opened the battle of Jerusalem.” Senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat accused Israel of “lighting matches in the hope of sparking a fire.”

via The Daily Star - Politics - Palestinian leaders warn of 'third intifada' over Jerusalem.

An Israeli police source said intelligence assessments showed the commotion in East Jerusalem would not escalate.

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Obama said Wavering on Troop Escalation in Afghanistan

Juan Cole weighs in on the disaster that is Afghanistan. Apparently, Obama is considering a major change in direction, perhaps withdrawing troops instead of adding more. And Biden is leading that charge. Lets hope that Obama figures out that Biden is his foreign policy expert and defers to his judgment. Hillary is just another neo-con.

Image via Wikipedia

The NYT says that President Barack Obama is reconsidering his plan to greatly increase the number of US troops in Afghanistan, and to be suffering "buyer's remorse" for sending 21,000 more troops there soon after his inauguration and before a proper policy review. The article suggests a stark difference of opinion between vice president Joe Biden who has the most foreign policy experience of anyone in the administration and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Biden is said to favor fewer US troops and a focus on al-Qaeda in the Pakistani badlands. Clinton is afraid the Taliban will take back over Afghanistan and invite al-Qaeda back in there.

[..]You can't do development aid very effectively in a country beset by guerrilla violence. Moreover, counter-insurgency requires a legitimate, effective Afghan partner that can compete with the Taliban and their allies for Afghan hearts and minds. And, if counter-terrorism is really the goal, then you don't need a 60,000-man army in a country notoriously inhospitable to foreign armies.

The Obama administration seems to be considering whether these four levels can be usefully unentangled.

In particular, incumbent president Hamid Karzai's clumsy attempt to steal the election and his continued seeming inability really to take charge in the country he de jure rules, appears to have provoked the Obama team to wonder whether they could in fact work with Karzai.

Personally, I think Biden is right and that if the administration will bet on him, they'd put us 2 or 3 years ahead of the curve.

via Informed Comment: Obama said Wavering on Troop Escalation in Afghanistan

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