Articles

Expectations for rapid change in the Muslim East have not materialized despite two long-entrenched dictators in Tunisia and Egypt respectively being driven from power in quick succession.

US President Barack Obama was immediately de-nounced by pro-Israeli groups when he spoke about the creation of a Palestinian state last month. He said that “…the borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states” (emphasis added). The Zionists are not prepared to vacate territory occupied through wars of aggression; they talk about new “ground realities” meaning illegal Jewish squatter colonies will not be removed. Even with 1967 borders, the Palestinians will get a mere 22% of the original land of Palestine while illegal immigrants from Europe, Russia and North America are free to occupy every inch of the holy land.

The father of Furkan Dogan — a Turkish-American who was shot and killed by Israeli commandos when they attacked the aid ship Mavi Marmara on 5-31-2010 — has filed a case against the Israeli government in a US court. His lawyer Ramazan Ariturk said on May 24, “We will open a compensation case against Israel and we’ll declare this at a press conference in front of the US Capitol.” The Mavi Marmara was part of an aid flotilla organized by the Turkish Humanitarian Relief Foundation, AHH, to deliver food and medicines to the besieged people of Gaza.

General Ratko Mladic, the third Serbian war criminal, was finally apprehended in Serbia on May 26. Wanted by UN prosecutors for war crimes during Serbia’s war on Bosnia, he was one of the principal architects of the gruesome massacre at Srebrenica in July 1995.

As revolution fans across the Middle East, there are reams of commentary on the reasons behind the spectacular conflagration. Some are sage, such as Shahid Alam’s insightful analysis of the “dignity deficit” that the Muslim world suffers from.Others verge on doomsday comic, pinning the blame on unruly natural causes than self-evident political ones, such as Paul Krugman’s warnings of natural disasters and their impact on world food supply. Even Hillary Clinton, who is usually so serenely autocratic, struck a somber note in a recent Munich visit, declaring that “the status quo is not sustainable.”

The pent up rage of the masses that erupted in Tunisia last December 17 has engulfed the entire Muslim East. Two dictators — General Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia and General Hosni Mubarak of Egypt — were consigned in quick succession to the dustbin of history but others are fighting back.

Bahraini security forces backed by Saudi troops and their masters in Washington have and continue to perpetrate indescribable crimes against innocent civilians in Bahrain. Those targeted include not only peaceful protesters, but also doctors and nurses treating the injured in hospitals.

In Libya, al-Jazeera is on the side of the Libyan rebels. Their cause is championed even if Western planes are bombing Libyan positions including the April 26 assassination attempt on Libyan leader, Colonel Muammar Qaddafi.

Given its tiny size (1.215 million population and 290 sq. miles of territory), Bahrain would not warrant a second glance yet its un-elected, tribal rulers rub shoulders with leaders at the world stage. Originally from Kuwait, the Khalifah family moved to Bahrain displacing Banu ‘Utbah nearly 200 years ago.

There were a slew of new revelations about the politics of the run-up to the US invasion of Iraq last month, when the Independent newspaper in Britain published details of documents recently obtained under the Freedom of Information.