Category: Middle East

Egyptian belly dancer’s anti-Obama video goes viral

MISIR OBAMA’YA DANSÖZ İLE YANIT VERMİŞ, ERDOĞAN DA NASİBİNİ ALIYOR. VİDEO’YU İZLEYİNİZ!

WASHINGTON, August 5, 2013 – As the U.S. went into an anti-terrorist embassy lockdown this weekend throughout the Middle East, one thing, at least, was becoming increasingly clear: the Egyptians sure don’t like President Obama.

Mısır Obama’ya Dansöz ile yanıt verdi, Erdoğan da payını aldı by Turkish Forum

Proof of this arose this weekend as an anti-Obama YouTube video recently posted by popular Egyptian belly dancer Sama Al Masry went viral, boasting some 163,000 views as of last count on Sunday, August 4.

In her video, Ms. Al Masry heaps curses on the President and his ancestors, and not sparing current U.S. Ambassador to Egypt Anne Patterson either. But this equal opportunity satirist also goes after now-former Egyptian President Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood allies, too, exemplifying the strange anti-Brotherhood alliance that has blossomed recently between Egypt’s secularists and that country’s once detested armed forces.

The Turks and, of course, the Israelis get dissed a bit as well.

It’s getting hard to tell the players without a program.

The ominous recent turn of events in the Middle East, particularly in populous, impoverished, yet influential Egypt, marks the nadir of the President’s failed policy “reset” in that troubled region.

SEE RELATED: Egypt from Nasser to El Sissi: Coup or revolution?

Snapshot of anti-Obama poster being paraded through the streets of Cairo. This is one of the kinder, gentler ones.

Buzzfeed noted this weekend that Marc Lynch, the Institute for Middle East Studies director at George Washington University, recently commented on the “vitriol” of Egypt’s recent “anti-American rhetoric.”

Writing in “Foreign Policy,” Mr. Lynch observed that Egyptian “streets have been filled with fliers, banners, posters, and graffiti denouncing President Barack Obama for supporting terrorism and featuring Photoshopped images of Obama with a Muslim-y beard or bearing Muslim Brotherhood colors,” with some of these same images appearing in Ms. Al Masry’s video.

A significant number of Egyptians—particularly those allied with the Brotherhood—initially hated the current U.S. Administration for having not more vigorously backed the overthrow of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

SEE RELATED: Continued violence despite Army efforts to restore security in Egypt

But soon, after contested elections were held in that country, the secularists and the Army came to hate the Administration for its apparent embrace of Morsi’s and the Brotherhood’s brand of radical Islam along with the Morsi government’s increasingly dictatorial policies along with its clear and continuing repression of religious minorities, notably the Christian Copts.

Now the Muslim Brotherhood hates the Administration for failing to support Egypt’s democratically elected ex-President, while the Army, joined by its former secularist enemies, hates the Administration for not backing its overthrow of radical Islam.

By flipping the Middle East policy of George W. Bush on its head, the Presidency of Barack Obama seems to have achieved the impossible: precisely the same results. It’s an astonishing and distressing development.

All this proving that pictures and videos are worth a thousand words. While watching (video above) don’t miss the frequent deployment of what appears to be a golf club. (Note that portions of the video and its crude but clear English-language captions may not be suitable for family viewing.)

Read more of Terry’s news and reviews at Curtain Up! in the Entertain Us neighborhood of the Washington Times Communities. For Terry’s investing and political insights, visit his Communities columns, The Prudent Man and Morning Market Maven, in Business.

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August 7, 2013
Rabbi Yisroel Feldman speaking in New York City at International Al-Quds Day rally

Rabbi Yisroel Feldman speaking in New York City at International Al-Quds Day rally

August 2, 2013

With the help of AlMighty

A Saloom Aliekoom

Greetings to all those gathered here today – welcome in the name of the Almighty. We are here to join the honorable people who have come together to express their pain at the injustice of the Zionist occupation of Al Quds.

Just because the other side is stronger and they are in power now, does not mean that they are in the right. The injustice remains an injustice, and it cries out to the world. The truth will always run after the lie and call out, “You are a lie!”

We are here to express our pain in regard to the Zionist occupation: we declare that it is wrong, false and unjust.

Yes, it has existed for several decades, but that still doesn’t make it right and justified. Neither does it mean that it will continue to exist forever. No, falsehood has its limits.

We must note that the Zionist occupation of Al Quds is not only a crime in the case of Al Quds. The entire Zionist occupation, their settlement in the Holy Land with the plan to take it over and expel the Palestinian people and oppress them, is a crime that cries out to the heavens. It is murder, theft and cruelty that cannot be tolerated. It is a double crime – against the Jewish Torah and against the standards of morality by which mankind lives.

If one robs another, resulting in a fight between them, and the fight continues for a long time, with the robber prevailing, and then, in order to end the fight, it is agreed that the robber will keep only part of the stolen property (as in the “Two State Solution”) this does not rectify the injustice.

The Zionist occupation of Palestine cannot be justified, even in one inch of the Holy Land.

Jews did come to live in the Holy Land over the generations, but not with the intention of ruling the land. The Jewish immigrants were welcomed by the Palestinian residents of the land with honor and respect, and the Jews lived side by side with the Palestinians and their leaders in mutual respect and peace.

The problems began when the Zionists came, with their plan to rule over the Palestinian people.

We would be more than happy to return to the old state of affairs, living peacefully together, but it must be under a Palestinian government so that the rights of every last Palestinian is not compromised in any way.

We must also make it clear that Zionism is not only a crime in terms of human morality; it is also strictly forbidden according to the Jewish faith and Torah. The very idea that the Jewish people should gather together and build themselves up in an independent country – that idea constitutes a breach of our faith. These are things that only the Almighty will do, without any human help. In the Torah and Prophets it is clearly written that there will come a time when the Almighty Himself will reveal His kingship on earth. He will change the minds of all people in the world, and all will worship Him together. He alone will gather all the Jews from around the world with great miracles, and, with the agreement of all peoples of the world, He will bring us to the Holy Land. People of all nationalities and of all races will live peacefully and serve the Creator together.

All Jews believe in this; whoever does not believe in this, excludes himself from the Jewish people. The Zionist ideal that the Jewish people should arise on their own and build their own country is thus against our faith. Such an ideal could only have been born in the minds of outspoken non-believers in Judaism. And therefore, when the Zionist plan became known, all the rabbis of the world launched a battle against it.

This ideal only became widely accepted through the Zionists’ tricks and deceptions – but true rabbis were not fooled. The Orthodox Jewish battle against Zionism will never cease; even if a day comes when the entire world makes peace with the facts as they are presently, the true Jews will not make peace with these facts.

We will always continue to proclaim that the Zionist “fact” is a lie, a deception; it is against our true faith, and it must come to an end. It must collapse on its own; the Almighty’s patience will not last forever. This falsehood cannot have the smallest connection with the truth that the Almighty will one day reveal to the world.

This is what we are looking forward to; we believe in it and we wait for it.

A Saloom Aliekoom

August 4, 2013
9-11 Cop Who Arrested Dancing Israelis Speaks

July 29, 2013
Ex-MI6 head ‘might air memoirs’ to set Iraq War record straight

by Joseph Fitsanakis

The former director of Britain’s external spy service has hinted he might publish his personal account of the decisions that led to Britain’s entry in the Iraq War, if he is criticized in a public inquiry on the subject. Sir Richard Dearlove led the UK’s Secret Intelligence Service, known as SIS or MI6, from 1999 until his retirement in 2004. He is currently on sabbatical from his post as Master of Cambridge University’s Pembroke College, in order to research and author his autobiography. The memoir is believed to be largely preoccupied with the intelligence that led to the British government’s decision to enter the United States-led 2003 war in Iraq. Sir Richard had previously indicated that he intended to make his memoirs posthumously available as a resource to academic researchers. But in an email to British tabloid The Mail on Sunday, he hinted he would consider publishing his personal account if he finds himself criticized by the Iraq Inquiry. Known in Britain as the Chilcot Inquiry, after its Chairman, Sir John Chilcot, the Iraq Inquiry was commissioned by the British government in 2009 to investigate the executive decisions that led the country to participate in the invasion of Iraq. One of the inquiry’s many goals was to evaluate the intelligence provided by MI6 to the government of Prime Minister Tony Blair. There have been rumors that the inquiry’s declassified findings, which are scheduled for publication soon, are critical of MI6’s performance and place particular blame on Sir Richard’s role in the debacle. In his email to The Mail, the former MI6 director made clear he had “no intention, of violating [his] vows of official secrecy”. But he added that he would reconsider his decision to make his memoirs available to scholars only after his death “depending on what Chilcot publishes”. The core of Sir Richard’s dispute with Chilcot is said to center on the claim, propounded by the British government in 2003, that Iraq’s armed forces were able to fire chemical weapon missiles at British troops stationed on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus. This allegation, which found its way to the British press following a series of controlled leaks, largely informed the British government’s public argument in favor of joining the US war effort in Iraq. It later turned out, however, that MI6 had stressed to British government executives that the intelligence referred strictly to short-range battlefield munitions, rather than long-range weapons. Sources close to Sir Richard say he is adamant that the Chilcot inquiry should place the blame for the chemical weapons claim to Prime Minister Blair and his chief spokesperson at the time, Alastair Campbell.

IntelNews, July 26, 2013

July 27, 2013
Israeli Firms in Middle of NSA Spy Scandal

Two Israeli companies, including one exposed by EIR in 2001-02 as under investigation in the U.S. for being part of a massive Israeli espionage network (see EIR, Feb. 1, 2002), have been identified as playing a central role in handling the NSA’s acquisition of call information from major telecommunications companies.

* VERINT Systems, formerly known as Comverse Systems, a U.S.-based subsidiary of the Israeli Comverse Technologies, was reported by author and NSA expert James Bamford to have been designated by the NSA to process all the call information (metadata) obtained from Verizon. By the time it got the NSA contract, Comverse was already well-known as a leading firm in wiretapping, or what it called the “lawful interception market” for law-enforcement agencies. In 2002, about the time NSA launched its Stellar Wind operation, tapping into the major telecoms, former NSA Director Lt. Gen. Kenneth Minihan joined the Board of Directors of Comverse-Verint.

* NARUS, another Israeli company, similarly processes all the information obtained from AT&T for the NSA. Narus was founded in Israel in 1997, and in 2010 was acquired by Boeing. Narus’s NarusInsight supercomputer system, which was installed in AT&T’s San Francisco Internet facility and identified by AT&T whistleblower Mark Klein, gave rise to a famous 2006 class action lawsuit filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation against AT&T, Hepting v. AT&T.

Additionally, AMDOCS, another Israeli telecommunications firm profiled by EIR in 2001-02, specializes in analyzing (i.e. data-mining) customer billing records for major U.S. telecoms; this data is similar to the “metadata” collected by the NSA on all phone calls in the U.S. Some investigators believe Amdocs is also involved in the NSA Stellar Wind program; indeed, it would be surprising if they were not.

Ha’aretz reported on June 8 that both Verint and Narus have ties to both the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, and the Israel Defense Forces intelligence-gathering unit 8200. Ha’aretz also raises the question of whether Mossad is a party to the intelligence-sharing arrangement between the U.S.’s NSA and Britain’s GCHQ, Britain’s Cheltenham-based signals-intelligence agency.

larouchepac.com, June 12, 2013

July 2, 2013
TURKEY’S DEAD MAN TALKING

It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

MACBETH, William Shakespeare

A month ago I wrote that Turkey’s relentless prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, was either heading for a psychotic break or an incident or statement so damaging to the nation that he would be forced to resign. If incessant lying in the face of overwhelming, documented truth, if using incredibly inflammatory, divisive language in public discourse, if impugning the motives of all who disagree with his bestial domestic policy towards peaceful protesters including nations, international organizations, NATO, the European Union, and non-governmental organizations to name but a few, if repeated gassing and beating of unarmed, peaceful protesters, if sanctioning and encouraging police (and personal private thug) violence on the level of Pinochet’s Chile and Hitler’s Third Reich, if state-supported murder is glorified as self-defense, if he, the nominal leader of Turkey, stands shamed and defamed before the eyes of the world (except for America) then he (or even a relatively normal egomaniac) would have left long ago. But he’s still here. And for the right reasons, I was wrong. My excuse? This prime minister is not a normal egomaniac, nor is he a normal or even abnormal megalomaniac. He’s a dead man talking. And talking. And talking. And talking. Gibbering nonsense allegations and conspiracy rubbish. Sex and beer in the mosques. Foreign meddlers. Interest rate lobby. Drunks. Looters. Coup-plotters. Vandals. Plunderers. The Jews did it. His language, his thoughts, like a cancer consume him. His reality? Zero.

He and his stooges still target people in the government-controlled media; public defaming is a specialty of this government. Erdoğan’s strong-arm street goons, in the worst tradition of Adolph Hitler, now assist his uniformed cop-goons in attacking peaceful protesters. And he is still talking. But that is all. He has lost control of the nation. Even the Kurds have joined the resistance. The very thought of Tayyip is lustily booed everywhere, from graduation ceremonies to race tracks. Athletic teams celebrate victories with Atatürk flags. Actors act out. Singers sing out. There is a frenzy of resistance music, art and caricatures. Agitprop Turkish-style fills the air and it is wonderful to behold. The brilliance of these kids is blinding. Normally rabidly partisan football fans have united in one team. Call it RESISTANCE fired by their joint rabid disgust with Erdoğan. Slogans are everywhere: “Everywhere Taksim, everywhere resistance,” “We are Mustafa Kemal’s soldiers.” They carry Turkish flags emblazoned with his image. “Tayyip resign!” they shout. But Tayyip resists, too. But nothing works for Erdoğan anymore. He cannot move about in public. His appearance at a public arena requires the government to purchase all tickets to redistribute to staunch party members. No booing of Tayyip is allowed! Verboten! Yasak!

Dead Man Talking must deeply believe that he and the shameless American ambassador, one Francis Ricciardone, indeed share “democratic values.” That, and last week’s express air delivery from the ever-generous America of 43 tons of pepper gas put a little pep in his step. FORTY-THREE TONS! The more to gas and blind you with my dear Turkish children. And the American ambassador calls this “having a conversation within your Turkish family.” Yes, a conversation, like this perhaps…Would you like to catch a gas canister in your eye socket today, my dear? No? Well how about a little brain damage instead courtesy of that model of democratic values, the USA? No? Well then, how about some lunch? A few rubber bullets to chew on, perhaps? Or a friendly whack on the ear by a cop’s made-in-the-West club? Or a police boot in your mouth to aid digestion? Still no? Goodness, gracious, you protesters are sure hard to please.

Such is the twisted mind of the American ambassador, a man who lives by spewing honeyed words and putrid thoughts. He is America’s talking marionette. He is the source, the taproot of Dead Man Talking. He feeds him. An earlier not-so-nice American ambassador, Eric Edelman, blew the whistle on the prime minister and his eight Swiss bank accounts. Dead Man Walking brushed it off as nonsense saying he got his wealth from gifts at his son’s wedding. Nice son. Nice father. Isn’t love grand?

Dead Man Talking. His delusions consume him. They will not leave him. Nor can he leave us. Nor can he tell the truth, to himself, to anyone. His delusions and the darkness, the sneaky darkness are his best friends. For him, everything is at stake. He thought he had it made, this prime minister. His friends, toadies all, never told him bad news. But it is in them, these flatterers, that he will begin to see his end. He will see it in their eyes. One evening he will see the streets again crowded with Turkish youth. He knows them well. They’re the “drunks and plunders” who laughingly embrace his slanderous words. They are the future. And the prime minister’s toadies know it. And the prime minister should ask them this simple question: Am I still the future? And then watch their eyelids flutter and their eyeballs search for the door.

The prime minister’s private police force has too many targets in too many cities. Too many peacefully assembled targets that he can now attack only at great peril to his already vanishing prestige. Anyway, America and Brazil and Israel cannot manufacture enough gas to stay the flood of people willing to die for a new future. They, the people of Turkey, are disgusted by the hijacked, exploited Islam that suppresses human freedom and replaces true spirituality with money, money, and more money. The young people that the prime minister so recklessly defames, these kids that appear on the television screens, are saying that they want a real democracy. Not this Turkish one that ruthlessly plunders the environment and enriches an equally ruthless business-political oligarchy. They want a new system, one yet unknown. One that Dead Man Walking and his ilk all over the world have not one iota of awareness.

The kids want one that cedes REAL power to the REAL people, all of them. One that controls the overwhelming greed inherent in this dying capitalistic system. One that remedies the materialistic and intellectual corruption that propels nations to kill and plunder. One that destroys forever imperialism in all its formulations that has always ravaged the planet. One that truly emancipates the people from the yoke of the religious mongering tyrants and their effete, cunning western backers. One that enables all people to clearly distinguish (and separate) their spiritual beliefs from their politics. No more conniving CIA Factbooks disclosing country-by-country religious breakdowns. No more religious markers on identification cards or any official or governmental form. Spirituality is from the heart, not from a piece of paper.

It’s Hitler-time in the Berlin bunker. And the dimensions of the full horror visited upon long-suffering Turkey over the past ten years will soon be revealed. What will Dead Man Talking shout about then? Will anyone listen? His toadies? His media? His police? His army? His rich wedding guests? What kind of a tale will he tell? What is the sound of no hands clapping? What is the fury?

Cem Ryan, Ph.D.
Istanbul
1 July 2013

July 2, 2013