Uprooted Palestinians are at the heart of the conflict in the M.E Palestinians uprooted by force of arms. Yet faced immense difficulties have survived, kept alive their history and culture, passed keys of family homes in occupied Palestine from one generation to the next.
The death toll has gone over 200 people yet the Israeli claims that this is just a beginning, while UN is finding ways to support Israel massacre as the world media calls it a “Defense Strategy”. Its no surprise that like always the media is trying its level best to manipulate the truth and are trying to feed it in the minds of the viewers that what ever is happening in Gaza is no genocide but a reply to the attack by Hamas. Unfortunately these media people have forgotten that the defenders a.k.a Israel is defending its occupation of Palestinian lands, UN gave 54% of the land to Israel, that percentage increases every year and by now they have more than 80% of the Palestinian Land, unofficially. If someone invades my land, takes away 54% of it and afterwards comes with tanks and big ass weapons to take away the remaining land then I would not care what the whole world calls me, I will try to defend my land! If defending your land is terrorism then I would call Hamas a terrorist organisation.
Gaza has been recently warned by Israel to evacuate the area near Israeli border as they will soon start a new episode of a genocide. Recently on social media I read all sorts of comments defending Israel that Israel has warned Palestinians to evacuate and they don’t want to kill any Palestinian, the question, to all of you who defend Israeli massacre, is how can they evacuate? either by Egypt border, that is closed, or by Israeli border where they will be treated like animals not even animals worst than animals, or they want Palestinians to swim their way out of Gaza? Now the answer is simple, greater Israel, Israel’s message is clear, surrender your lands to Israel or we’ll kill all of you and take your lands. How peaceful Israel is? Israel have its force ready to invade the Gaza strip and start another massacre and while they’ll be killing people of a country who don’t even have any kind of force, except for resistance that the world calls terrorist, with their high tech weapons, funded by US, the media will again be at work trying to justify the invasion, another occupation and genocide committed by the worlds most terrorist country.
Quran says in chapter 2, verse 11
“And when it is said to them, “Do not cause corruption on the earth,” they say, “We are but reformers.”
Iraqi Kurdish protesters deploy a giant flag of their autonomous Kurdistan region during a demonstration to claim for its independence on July 3, 2014 outside the Kurdistan parliament building in Arbil, in northern Iraq. (Photo: AFP-Safin Hamed)
Over the course of the past decade, Iraqi Kurdistan, also known as South Kurdistan, has been pushing harder for secession from Iraq and forming an independent Kurdish state. If and when this occurs, will the Kurdish politicians and the population be comfortable allying with Israel?
The journey for Kurdish self-determination has been long and arduous throughout the 20th century.
As early as 1919, Kurdish groups in northern Iraq led by Mahmoud Barzanji rebelled against British colonial domination. The revolt was ferocious, only quelled after the colonial British air-force unleashed a barrage of deadly gas bombs on villages and towns. Barely two years later, in 1922, as Barzanji declared the Kingdom of Kurdistan, another Kurdish revolt against the British was sparked but it too was quickly repressed by force.
Yet the dream of an independent Kurdish state that encompasses north-eastern Syria, south-eastern Turkey, northern Iraq, and western Iran lingered and grew over time. Since those events in the early 20th century, various Kurdish political and resistance groups have surfaced in Syria, Iran, Turkey and Iraq, each of whom having utilized different tactics and alliances to uphold the Kurdish cause, with the aim of demanding representation and self-determination whether in the form of having a voice within these states or forming an independent nation.
It was in Turkey and Iraq especially, that struggles for Kurdish independence bore the brunt of the worst forms of repression.
Today, Iraqi Kurdistan, or South Kurdistan as many Kurds call it, has been able to achieve the greatest level of autonomy ever witnessed in modern Kurdish history. There are already discussions about formally announcing independence from Iraq, at a time when the central government is at its weakest and a referendum has been called to vote on independence. This desire for independence is complemented by wide-spread and often heated debate within Kurdish communities of northern Iraq, and beyond, on what the appropriate means are in declaring independence.
Within this debate questions of what this state's foreign policy would look like and what alliances should such a newly-born state pursue are also raised.
There is arguably nothing more controversial, at least regionally, than the consideration of allying oneself with the Zionist state, Israel.
A “second Israel”
The Kurdistan Regional government (KRG) began administrating the territory after the illegal Anglo-American invasion of Iraq in 2003. Since the formation of the KRG, there have been numerous reports of the alleged presence of Israeli political, military and intelligence personnel in northern Iraq. So much so that in 2006, during a visit to Kuwait, Massoud Barzani, the head of the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) and president of KRG, was asked by Kuwaiti reporters of such ties. He responded, “It is not a crime to establish ties with Israel. If Baghdad sets up diplomatic ties with Israel, we will have them open a consulate in Erbil.”
The point for Barzani was that as long as Iraqi Kurdistan was part of Iraq, it was still technically at war with Israel. But Barzani also noted in the 2006 press conference that other Arab countries had ties with Israel, an argument that echoes in many of the debates by Kurdish politicians and public.
Arabs fear Kurdish ties to Israel, linking it to the belief of an attempt by non-Arab communities to subvert and hinder pan-Arabist inclinations.
As far back as the mid-1960s, Iraqi Arab officials and commentators describe the Kurdish desires for independence as an attempt to form a “second Israel,” evoking the fear that another non-Arab state aligned with Western interests would be formed.
Decades later, the description of Iraqi Kurdistan as a “second Israel” would be appropriated in October 2006, this time by Omar Othman (also know as Za'im Ali), the KRG's Minister of the Peshmerga (a Kurdish term used for armed Kurdish fighters), during a meeting with American officials, as a cable document released by WikiLeaks revealed.
Unlike the intentions of Iraqi officials and other Arab commentators decades before, Othman’s description of KRG as a “second Israel” was “because of [KRG's] support of American policies and its opposition to terrorism.”
“He developed this concept, saying that before 2003 the KRG got along well with 'the Arabs' (other Arab countries), but that now the Arab world hates the Kurds because the KRG supports the US. Za'im Ali said Kurds made sacrifices to stand by the US and now they are paying the price. However, he said the case of the Palestinians also hurts the Kurds, because – like the Kurds – the Palestinians are struggling for their legitimate national rights,” the diplomatic cable added.
On June 29 of this year, Israel's right-wing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced his government's support for the independence of Iraqi Kurdistan. It was a surprising announcement, making Israel the first country to publicly voice its support for Kurdish self-determination.
“The Israelis are clearly acting on their own accord,” Ruwayda Mustafa Rabar, a British-Kurdish journalist and commentator, told Al-Akhbar. “[The Israelis] see it as an important opportunity for them because Kurdistan has oil and breaks their alienation in the region.”
“They were acting unilaterally...but it was like the kiss of death,” she added.
Already, the support has garnered criticisms from Arabs in Iraq and the region. Netanyahu's announcement also came after unsubstantiated rumors, propagated by Iraqi television channels and circled by the international mainstream press, that the KRG was selling oil to the Israelis spread throughout social media.
But even if the story was true, Kawa Hassan, knowledge officer for the Dutch-based Hivos organization and visiting fellow at Beirut's Carnegie Middle East Center, pointed out that many Kurds referred to Egyptian oil sales to Israel as a precedent.
“This position therefore says, 'Why is it halal for them, butharam for us?'” Hassan told Al-Akhbar.
“The unfortunate thing about politics is all the back door dealings and under the table agreements. The Arab countries do little to help the Palestinians and are on good terms with the Israeli government behind the scenes. But as soon as support for Kurdistan is mentioned, the Kurds are at the receiving end of the harshest criticism,” Lawen Azad, a former Kurdish journalist and currently an employee in an oil and gas company in the Iraqi Kurdish city of Sulaymaniyeh, echoed.
“Like a poisoned chalice”
What benefit does Israel provide for Iraqi Kurds? For one thing, military capabilities.
“The US administration has refused to fund and train the Kurdish armed forces, as there's currently an embargo on the Peshmerga. ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) are fighting with new weapons and the Peshmerga have outdated ones. Ties with Israel could fill that vacuum,” Rabar opined.
Furthermore, Israel offers an ally for the Iraqi Kurds in a neighborhood that seems hostile to Kurdish aspirations.
“When Saddam Hussein showed his support for the Palestinian cause and the people, many Palestinians saw him as their voice which in turn made them supportive of him and were not vocal against the atrocities he committed against the Kurdish people. This led to much resentment towards the Palestinian people and is one of the reasons Kurds support the Israeli government more,” Azad claimed.
Even then, there seems to be a very pragmatic approach to the debates.
“There is a very healthy public debate about this in Kurdish communities,” Hassan said, “and there are many positions. One view points to the betrayal by the US, Israel, and Iran during the [Kurdish] revolution in 1975 as the need to be cautious. Others argue that there is no need for an alliance with Israel, that it is a poisoned chalice. Others point to the other Arab countries that have ties with Israel as an example – this is the stronger position in the political sphere I think.”
“At the same time, researchers, academics, intellectuals, activists and others feel that an alliance with Israel simply won't help,” he added.
Similarly Rabar said, “An alliance with Israel is unlikely because Iraqi Kurdistan is surrounded by Arab countries, and today the priority is to prioritize ties with Turkey – which has become hostile to Israel. But in terms of the discussions on social media, there is a growing argument about how can one accept support from an oppressor when one was the oppressed elsewhere.”
“Ultimately, the key point is, is an alliance in the interest of Kurds? What matters is that independence will be declared and who will support it. Talk is cheap, after all.”
A day after Netanyahu's announcement, the Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told the press that Israel “was taking no action to help the Kurds achieve formal statehood.”
Another, and perhaps more important wrinkle to the issue is the position of other Kurdish groups that clash with the KDP's potential alliance with Israel.
“Many Kurds, historically, and even now, support the Palestinian cause. There is a sense of empathy, a shared sense of injustice,” Hassan argued, pointing to organizations like the Kurdistan's Workers Party (PKK) founded and led by Abdullah Ocalan, who is currently in a Turkish prison. Ocalan's arrest, many believe, would not have been possible without thealleged involvement of the Israeli Mossad.
“There were lots of Kurdish political organizations that have strong ties. Many were in Beirut and in Syria, working with the Palestinian Liberation Organisation and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Don't forget as well that there is a Palestinian Authority consulate, and not an Israeli one, in Erbil,” he added.
To buttress this point, Rustum Joudi, an official for the Syrian Kurdish organization, the Democratic Union Party, harshly criticized any moves to establish relations with Israel by the KDP.
“We, at the PYD in Syria, are against relations with the Zionist state. It is repressing the Palestinians, and has committed attacks against Syria and the rest of the region. We fully support the Resistance in Palestine,” Joudi told Al-Akhbar.
“The relationship with Israel is particular to the KDP. If [the KDP] are building a nation, Israel is exploiting this to create division between Kurds and Arabs in the region,” he said, and added, “There are 25 other Kurdish political groups, many of them are against KDP. This does not help our cause, the Kurds have their inalienable rights, but this will not help us one bit.”
The shadow of disunity looms large if an independent Iraqi Kurdistan forms an alliance with Israel, and it is likely part of the calculations among the Kurdish politicians and their supporters in the region.
As Azad opined to Al-Akhbar, “There needs to be a unifying approach to Kurdish independence and that includes all the other parties in the other parts of Greater Kurdistan. They need to be consulted at some point because yes whilst the notion of an independent Kurdistan (South Kurdistan) is a great achievement, the situation in the other parts cannot be ignored or neglected either. Again, the humanitarian aspect should not be sold for the political gains.”
“Their support could make you a country, which I doubt but you never know, but at what cost? It is a very hard line to walk. Do your political aspirations get in the way of your moral and humanitarian obligations?”
A (brief) history of the Kurds in Iraq
“It was specifically between (Massoud) Barzani and the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP), and not other Kurdish groups, that had and built ties with Israel,” Kawa Hassan toldAl-Akhbar.
There is a common misconception that the Kurds are a monolithic, homogeneous group, aligned and unified in terms of ideologies and tactics in the goal for self-determination. In reality, there are 30 million Kurds, spread out amongst numerous countries, each with their own dialect. More so, Kurds are composed of numerous denominations and religious beliefs that tie them with different communities beyond their own. The vibrancy and heterogeneity of the Kurds are even more prevalent when considering history.
Unlike other Kurdish groups, as noted by Hassan, Iraqi Kurdistan and KDP's chief Barzani, have a peculiar relationship with the Zionist state, shaped by their subjective experience in Iraq.
The ties between Barzani, the KDP, and Israel were first facilitated by Iraqi Kurdish Jews, who left Iraq for Israel in 1950-51. The ties further developed secretly during the 1960s with the first Kurdish-Iraqi war. The war was led by Mustafa Barzani, the father of current KDP chief Massoud Barzani, following the collapse of a brief and fragile detente between Barzani and the Baghdad government in 1961. It was a war that came about as part of a series of uprisings headed by the Barzani family since the establishment of the modern Iraqi state.
The conflict between Mustafa Barzani and Baghdad persisted, even with radical changes in the Iraqi government from a military coup in 1963 and the Baathist coup five years later.
During the course of the first Kurdish-Iraqi war, Mustafa Barzani established strong ties with the US, Iran, and Israel for political, military, and economic support. In terms of Israel,
Mustafa Barzani himself had secretly visited the Zionist state twice, first in 1968 and then in 1973, meetings with senior Israeli officials including then- Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, while a handful of Israeli military advisers were welcomed in the Kurdish regions.
With Levy Ashkoul 1968
With Dayan 1968
Maier Amit on left of Mostafa Barazani and David Kron on his right-1966
Mostafa Barazani (on left) with Deputy Mossad Director in Northern Iraq-1966
Massoud Barzani and Mustapha Barzani have been puppets of the Mossad since 1952..
Head of Mossad delegation, Haim Libkob with Mutafa Barazani-1972
The war ended in 1970 with a cease-fire agreement that granted basic autonomy for the Kurdish regions of northern Iraq, and promises to allow Kurdish representation in the Iraqi government. However, peace was brief and fleeting.
Only four years later, after the failure of the Baathist government to implement parts of the agreement, did a second war break out. Unlike the first Kurdish-Iraqi war, the second Kurdish-Iraqi war lasted a year because Mustafa Barzani was pressured by his international backers to end the conflict. As a result, he and nearly 100,000 of his followers were forced into exile in Iran.
Mustafa Barzani would die there in 1979, and his son Massoud became head of the KDP.
Despite Mustafa Barzani's failure, the Kurdish struggle in Iraq was far from over. Now it faced a new chapter with even greater obstacles.
The KDP's exile allowed another Kurdish group known as the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) led by Jalal Talabani, currently president of Iraq, to appear. The rise of the PUK sparked off intense fighting between the KDP and PUK, each attempting to monopolize leadership of the Kurdish cause in Iraq. While this was happening, sporadic fighting by various Kurdish groups against the Iraqi government persisted, and then the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s began, in which the Kurds were enticed to join on the Iranian side.
In the face of these challenges, the Iraqi government pursued a policy, described by historians and commentators as genocidal, against Kurdish communities that included rapid Arabization of Kurdish areas and cities such as Kirkuk, brutal bombardment and violence by the Iraqi military, and even the use of chemical weapons on towns like Halabja in 1988. Almost 200,000 Kurdish civilians in total were killed during the campaign launched by Saddam Hussein's regime.
After the Iraq's failed invasion and occupation of Kuwait, and a short Kurdish uprising in 1991, a no-fly-zone was enforced by mainly American and other Western forces over the northern Iraqi region, effectively giving security and autonomy to the Kurdish communities. Due to this opportunity, Massoud Barzani and the KDP were able to return to Iraq, and participated in an elections, where the votes were split between the KDP and their PUK opponents.
The vote-sharing alliance with the PUK quickly broke-down, spurring another inter-Kurdish conflict. It was only through military support from Saddam Hussein's regime that the KDP was able to maintain supremacy. A 1998 peace accord in Washington ended the inter-Kurdish conflict between the PUK and KDP, and both shared various parts of territories. A unified government known as the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) was formed after the 2003 Anglo-American invasion, and continues to be in power today. Barzani heads the KRG, while Talabani was placed as Iraq's president.
In the last few years, the power and autonomy of KRG grew conversely to the ever-weakened central government led by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. The Iraqi Kurdistan region has escaped most of the violence ranging in the rest of Iraq, as well as achieved economic and social independence. More so, cities and towns like Kirkuk have returned into the Kurdish fold, in an attempt to reverse Saddam Hussein's Arabization policy. One of the key frictions in regards to Kurdish independence is that the oil fields that lay below these places would be lost by the Iraqi government.
Recently, the motivation for Kurdish Independence has reached almost fever-pitch.
As Lawen Azad noted to Al-Akhbar: “In the last few years we have seen President Barzani threaten the central government with [independence] when tensions have a reached boiling point but this time it was different. The ISIS advance in Iraq caught everyone by surprise and it was an opportunity for many Iraqis and non Iraqis to see that the policies of the Maliki government have marginalized the communities that ISIS has taken and that he is incapable of securing the country's stability. So when independence was spoke about this time, it had more weight, more substance.”
She added, “When President Barzani called on the Kurdistan Parliament for a referendum to be held, everyone was overwhelmed, the time had come. Then of course, you have to face the realities on the ground. Your neighbors and international community. Iran is strongly opposed, Turkey less so (the oil helps of course), Syria is in turmoil as is Iraq. The US calls for the unification of Iraq and places this burden, unfairly, on the shoulders on the Kurds... And then came the Israeli government's declaration in support of Kurdistan.”
Recently 3 Israeli teenagers were killed and Israel reacted by killing 85 Palestinians in 3 days, they never kidnapped the Palestinians, like they say Palestinians kidnapped the 3 teenagers before killing them, instead they dropped bombs on them, using airstrike, killing people of all ages, 85 people killed and UN still thinks that its not enough to have intervention even as an option, forget the UN what about all the Arab nations? or Muslim nations? The question that really annoys me and forces me to think of an answer and betray the obvious. This annoying question forced me to do some research to understand this conflict, after researching I realized that all that is happening is no coincidence, but a master plan, and everything started to make sense.
The master plan started way back in 2001, I believe you know what I am talking about, yes 9/11, a new world order. You must be thinking am I crazy? why am I linking a tragedy that happened in US with Israel and Palestine conflict? yes I am crazy enough to think for myself and not accept the crap that television throw at me and reject the obvious. 9/11 was an inside job, and if you think it wasn’t you are deluded or its because Television is your reliable source to get all the information. I am not going to prove it to you how it was an inside job but I am going to tell you how it helped Israel, and why Zionists played such an important part in that 9/11 incident.
Larry Silverstein, Jewish American businessman, who obtained a 99 year lease on the entire world trade center complex on 24 July, 2001. Silverstein was on personal friendship terms with the Zionist media-magnate Rupert Murdoch, former Israeli President and Zionist war criminal Sharon and also with the Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Frank Lowe leased the mall area of world trade center made up of approximately 427,000 square feet, and he was also a Jew who was fought in Israel’s war of independence, and according to some sources was a member of Hagganah, Jewish terrorist organization.
Lewis Eisenberg was the head of Port Authority of New York and he is the person who authorized the lease transfer to Silverstein and Lowy. Again he was not just a Jew but was also part of United Jew Federation, you can read about this federation on internet.
Ronald Lauder played a key role in privatization of the World Trade Center and that’s not it he also played an important role in privatization of Stewart Air Force base, the flight path of both the jets, that hit the WTC, converged directly over this airport, and not so surprisingly he was Jew and was member of many Jew organizations.
WTC was in the hands of Zionists and you can also read about Jules Kroll, Jeremy Kroll and Jerome Hauer as 9/11 was just the beginning of the plan and I want to talk about how it was used and if you want me to tell you all about these I’ll make another post for it.
Now why would Jews want to destroy the world trade center? let me tell you why, 9/11 was not just a terrorist attack, but was a gateway to the Muslim world. A reason to destroy the middle east, and infect them with terrorism. Since 9/11 and after all these interventions most of the middle eastern countries are a mess. All those countries who posed a threat to their master plan were intervened in the name of democracy but it wasn’t the democracy that they wanted to bring, it was either destruction, create the instability in the country so that they can never stand or install their puppets as the leaders in those countries. Wesley Clark retired General of US army in an interview told that when he went to pentagon he was told that they will attack 7 countries in 5 years, and those countries were Iraq, Syria, Libya, Lebanon, Somalia, Sudan and finally Iran. So these interventions were planned according to Wesley the general who told him about these interventions didn’t know why they will intervene (his interview is on youtube too so you can check it out). Now its quite clear why these interventions were planned.
Iraq and Libya are unstable, Iran is just busy talking and making nuclear weapons, Syria is in civil war fighting against funded rebels and Egypt just suffered from an uproar and its still suffering, do you think its all a coincidence? do you think the muslim terrorists and rebels are fighting for themselves? or do you think all these civil wars, uproars and rebels attack, all these things are not planned? the whole Middle East is in a mess, and time is near when Israel will start sending ground troops to Gaza and no one will be in their way, the UN will put up blind folds like she is ignoring the butchering of Muslims in Burma.
We all thought that the interventions in middle East were because of the Oil, that is not completely true there is a master plan in place, expansion of Israel.
Its just an overview and in the next post I will break it down and will explain everything briefly. Don’t see the obvious that’s what they want you to see.
Thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters marched in French cities on Saturday to condemn violence in Gaza, defying a ban imposed after demonstrators marched on two synagogues in Paris last weekend and clashed with riot police.
Meanwhile, government forces in Indian-controlled Kashmir fired on protesters rallying against Israel's invasion of Gaza, killing a teenage boy, police said. Protests were also reported in London.
Indian troops opened fire after the protesters clashed with security forces in Khudwani, a village south of Srinagar, the main city in Indian Kashmir, a police officer said. Police did not give the boy's age, but residents said he was 15 or 16.
Kashmir has witnessed massive pro-Palestinian protests almost every day since Israel launched its military campaign in Gaza. Protesters have burned Israeli flags and clashed with government forces at several places in the region, injuring at least five people.
French President Francois Hollande said he understood emotional responses to the killing of hundreds of Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip in a flare-up of hostilities with Israel but would not allow violence to spill over into France.
"That's why I asked the interior minister, after an investigation, to ensure that such protests would not take place," he told journalists during a visit to Chad.
Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve justified bans in Paris, the Sarcelles suburb and the Mediterranean city of Nice by saying the security risk was too great, prompting outrage from left-wing and pro-Palestinian groups.
He had asked police in cities to examine security risks city by city and, where necessary, to issue ban orders.
The far-left New Anticapitalist Party, an organizer of last Sunday's rally and the banned one in Paris, urged protesters in Paris to defy the ban, prompting police to issue a warning.
"Those who do not respect the ban, in support of protests or against them, face the risk of being stopped, arrested and handed over to the courts," Paris police said in a statement.
However, large crowds defied the warning and gathered in the capital chanting "Israel, assassin" in front of police barricades. Rallies were also held in more than a dozen other cities, from Lille in the north to Marseille in the South.
"This ban on demonstrations, which was decided at the last minute, actually increases the risk of public disorder," the Greens Party said in a statement. "It's a first in Europe."
Volunteers loyal to Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, take positions during a military advance in areas under the control of Islamic State, formerly known as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), in the town of Samarra, in the province of Tikrit, on July 12, 2014.
An Arab researcher can find dozens of studies, documents, and books on Israeli or Western plans to partition the Arab world. An Arab researcher can also consult history books to find clear examples on how successful those schemes were, with the most notable instance perhaps being Sykes-Picot and most recently, Sudan. One such book is Carnages: Les guerres secrètes des grandes puissances en Afrique by the very credible French author Pierre Péan, who sheds light on the workings of the Zionist lobby in the United States and Western countries ahead of the partition of Sudan.
But the problem is that many Arabs do not read, as confirmed by The Cultural Development Report published by the Arab Thought Foundation. The report says that the average time Arab citizens spend reading each year is six minutes. Yes, six minutes, compared to 200 hours for European individuals. Furthermore, Arabs mostly read material related to horoscopes, cooking, sex, or superficial apocryphal Islamic content concerned with interpreting dreams and so forth. Profound, serious, and enlightening Islamic reading is almost absent. And in recent years, Sunni and Shia books accusing each sect of blasphemy and misguidance are becoming wide-spread.
The second problem is that the Arabs who do read mostly read books that reinforce their convictions and proscribe others’. It is sufficient to take a quick look at social media (Facebook and Twitter especially), to discover that most Islamic material quoted by this or that side serves to find ways to excommunicate, undermine, or eliminate opponents.
The third problem is that illiteracy figures among Arabs are disastrous. If this is added to the poor economic, medical, and social conditions and corruption, the combination is the equivalent of a red-carpet welcome for sectarian sedition, terrorism, and mutual exclusion.
Last year, the Arab League Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization (ALECSO) confirmed in a report than up to 100 million Arabs are illiterate. In other words, almost a third of the population of the Arab world cannot read or write. Interestingly, the highest percentage of illiteracy according to the report is in Egypt, affecting 17 million people, followed by Sudan, Algeria, Morocco, and Yemen. Illiteracy is particularly high among females for reasons that we all know, which feeds into higher birth rates.
As a result of all this, awareness suffers, unrest grows, and uprisings become haphazard. If one reads sociologist Emanuel Todd’s analysis of the Arab uprisings and other revolutions in the world, one will infer that successful revolutions take place where the birth rate is two or less per family. Todd’s explanation is that educated women have fewer children, and when women are sufficiently educated, they often seek to reform society.
The fourth problem is poverty. According to the World Bank office in Sana'a, for example, poverty affects about 55 percent of Yemenis. In Egypt, the head of the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics, Major General Abu Bakr al-Jundi, says that poverty affects more than 26 percent of the population. International statistics put these figures at much higher levels still.
In short, when we combine ignorance with illiteracy and poverty, we get restless societies that can be agitated in different directions. Indeed, their disenchantment has to have an outlet, and today, the natural outlet seems to be the complete intolerance toward others, so it is no wonder that sectarian strife is advancing.
This is a fertile environment for anyone wishing to sow sedition, including rival regional and international actors that have certain schemes and that have the wherewithal to push them forward.
The paradox here is that the Arab world is rich in natural resources. Oil is abundant in the Gulf, Algeria, and other nations. The Mediterranean basin is expected to be rich in hydrocarbons as well. The land is fertile and livestock is also abundant (before its partition, Sudan had 84 million hectares of arable land, of which it only exploited 19 million hectares, in addition to 24 million hectares of pastures, 64 million hectares of forest, and more than 128 million heads of cattle, which would be enough to feed the entire Arab world).
In theory, the world needs to increase its food production by about 70 percent in the next three decades. Industries from China to Europe are always in need for oil resources like the ones present in the Arab world. Yet the world’s economic conditions require keeping the Arab world in a state of conflict, chaos, and apprehension to import more of the weapons the world makes. (One may read many international reports that confirm this, including the reliable reports published by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI)). Also recall that the Gulf nations are the world’s top importers of arms relative to their populations, with some deals exceeding $300 billion in value between 2011 and 2014.
Israel’s existence alone is no longer enough to cause conflict. Many Arab countries are no longer willing to fight Israel, or have signed peace treaties with it, or established ties with Israel away from the limelight. Therefore, other causes of conflict had to be invented. Today, there is no bigger story than Shia-Sunni strife. This is a long-term investment that can last for decades, and it cannot be resolved. It also prevents the Arabs from uniting, encircles Iran, and diverts attention away from Israel.
Shia and Sunnis can adduce hundreds of reasons and pretexts to justify battling each other. Some claim it is a fight with terrorism. Others say it is to prevent the expansion of Iran, the Persians, and the Safavids. A third segment claims that the battle is between a resistance project and a surrender project, and that strife was reinforced after the U.S. invasion of Iraq and Hezbollah’s victory against Israel. A fourth segment says the battle is to prevent foreign hegemony. A fifth segment still argues it is to prevent partitioning.
All these arguments are debatable. What is certain is that all sides are mired in the mud of sectarian strife. What is certain is that the nation of Mohammad is in a state of infighting, which is not likely to stop anytime soon because many of the belligerents believe that their mission is divine, rather than political or military in nature.
But in divine warfare, each side would be defending its god, and each side would be seeking to fight until martyrdom, believing the reward would be eternity in paradise. In this warfare as well, each side takes joy in seeing the dead of the other side, walking between the corpses, and taking pictures of them that are then posted on social media sites – the same sites that were invented by the West while Muslims invent ways to kill other Muslims.
For all this the causes are many but the result is one: mass Islamic suicide of which no one will emerge unharmed, and suicide that paves the way for re-molding the Arab world by those who wrote and we did not read and in the manner they desire.
There is an established saying by the Prophet that states: If two Muslims meet with their swords, then the murderer and the victim shall both be in hell. Ultimately, there will be no solution for us except with serious rapprochement between Sunnis and Shia, no matter the costs and the pressures. This mass suicide must be stopped at all levels, political, religious, military, and social. Clerics must play the most prominent role, especially since the Arab left and its remnants had handed over the arena a long time ago to religious leaders or their followers. What remains of that left today does not do much more than writing to criticize, as though it is has had no responsibility whatsoever for the current situation of the Arab world, many parts of which were once under the left’s control.
This article is an edited translation from the Arabic Edition.
Voltaire, actualité internationale, n°109
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Donald Trump: Round Two—An Analysis (12 November 2024) by Lawrence Davidson
Part I — Surprise, Surprise? Just how surprised should […]
Fake Rolex Pearlmaster 39 of Timekeeping
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The Rolex Pearlmaster, often referred to as “the pearl of the Oyster
collection,” epitomizes the pinnacle of luxury watchmaking. Crafted
exclusively in pre...
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Hello all,
It is with great sadness that I share with you the passing of our beloved
sister, Mother, and Grandmother, the individual that you all knew ...
Ikhras Endorses Muntadhar Al-Zaidi
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“Oh parties of banditry and sectarianism and corruption, we have come and
our goal is to destroy you.” Ikhras formally endorses Muntadhar al-Zaidi,
Iraqi j...
Guantánamo Bay victim sues Ottawa for $50 million
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Djamel Ameziane, an Algerian-born technician, who took refuge in Canada in
1995, sues Canadian government for $50 million as compensation for the
detention...
Palestinian Women – One for All, All for One
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Honouring All Palestinian Women by Honouring Three: Hanin Zoabi, Ahed
Tamimi, Samah Sabawi Vacy Vlazna “Palestinian women have always stood side
by side ...
US’s Saudi Oil Deal from Win-Win to Mega-Lose
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By F. William Engdahl Who would’ve thought it would come to this? Certainly
not the Obama Administration, and their brilliant geo-political think-tank
neo-...
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*Mordechai Vanunu wins human rights prize of Brazilian Press Association *
* http://www.alternativenews.org/english/index.php/features/updates/7038-mordechai...
Abdul Aziz Rantissi:
"My ultimate wish, my God, is to attain martyrdom,"...God granted him his wish on April 17, 2004, at the hands of Israeli assassins.
Uprooted Palestinian 
