MENA, MENA, Tekel, Parsin (Middle East, North Africa & other Geopolitical Hotspots) 2018

I certainly don't see Israel's desire/right to exist as suicidal. For a start, as sleepingbag so charmingly put it, they're always winning.

xpost No, I get that. Shooting protestors is absolutely inexcusable, but it's a state of constant violence, to degrees, that will always tip one way or the other, eventually.

xpost That's what makes it such a catch-22. They're always "winning" because they can't lose. To lose means the end of Israel, which would be suicidal.

that's how it looks to the israeli right wing, but there are other definitions of israel and other definitions of "winning" and "losing," yes?

I'd love to hear them. I mean, I think there should be two states, but the idea that that would be a solution I think is naive.

I think the shooting of the protesters is/was disgusting and unnecessary. But

The first part is correct. the "But" wasn't needed here. To the extent that "both sides do it", that's a misleading dynamic you should be familiar with from the thread this conversation migrated from. The violence, human costs, and income discrepancy in this conflict have been completely lopsided.

the reason that people here react strongly against the "both sides" argument, yesterday and today, is that in the context of 50+ Palestinians getting murdered by the Israeli military, it comes across as a defense of Israel's massacre of protesters.

i do share your frustrations with the prospects of a peaceful solution in the near-future, but it wasn't that long ago that there were summits and cease fires and nobel peace prizes. it all fell apart, but that doesn't mean it's impossible. and i don't like the ramifications of believing that peace is impossible.

When the conflict has been going on for literally thousands of years I am less hopeful than you are. And of course it is all tied into the Jewish identity of Israel itself, which I am usually pretty ambivalent about until, say, Iran's guy says a few days ago that the Jews brought the Holocaust on themselves, or just a few months ago Putin blames all sorts of problems on the Jews. It's all tied together in a muddle of history, anti-Semitism, religious fundamentalism, the whole shebang.

The conflict hasn't been going on for literally thousands of years.

Conflict and war there in general.

but... "the conflict has been going on for literally thousands of years" is a complete fabrication. as a trope it has had a shockingly long life but this has been debunked a billion times. the conflict has been going on since 1948. it entered a new phase in 1967. people are alive today who were alive when the conflict began going on. many still have the deeds to theirs or their parents' homes expropriated from them in 1948. this is not some ancient intractable force in the soil or in the blood, it's a political problem, perpetuated by political actions in the present. like moving the embassy for example - nothing eternal or thousands-of-years-y about that.

There's somewhere there hasn't there been war and conflict for thousands of years?

^ Yeah, was gonna say, that's everywhere!

exactly!

xpoat No, i know. Obviously there was no israeli-palestinian conflict before there was an Israel. But forget for the moment the implication that the only way to end the conflict is to have no Israel again, that whole region has been a muddle of shifting occupation for centuries.

Anyway, not going to solve anything here, I'm going to Costco.

LOL. If only it was as simple as going to Costco.

Have you ever been to Costco!?

the other thing is that the "thousands of years" trope, and/or the "it's always been shifting around, over there in that region" trope, implicitly adopts the zionist framework, where what's at stake is an ethnic-religious right to an ancient, immutable homeland, and that homeland's boundaries are exactly coterminous with the recognized boundaries of israel plus the territories occupied since 1967. what a coincidence! again, that's the metanarrative favored by a certain ideology and certain forces which have been dominant for a long time in israeli political culture and essentially since day one in israeli military culture (but certainly since ariel sharon's rise through the ranks).

but for palestinians displaced from their homes or living under occupation, the issue isn't necessarily a religious one at all (though certainly for many it can and has come to seem that way) and certainly not a thousands-of-years one. this is something that started happening to their parents or grandparents and continues to happen to them in the present day. for non-zionist jewish israeli citizens, it can also be something other than thousands-of-years: they, personally, were born there, this is the only home they've known, etc. these are difficult things to reconcile. it's implausible that a solution would leave every person completely satisfied. but we can confront that without throwing our hands up and declaring it's impossible to reconcile and that no solution is possible because man, they've always been fighting over there. the only actors who really need that to be true are extremist factions in israel and in palestine. when those extremists are in power it would be really helpful for the american government, as israel's most crucial supporter, to recognize these distinctions, but it all tends to get washed together and the U.S. media effectively cover for this by falling back on the thousand-year framework.

fuck

WATCH: "This is me being a moralist" - @esglaude, on Gaza #MTPDaily pic.twitter.com/VwYvY3fZVb

— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) May 14, 2018

the shocked silence after he said that - that was gripping. i guess he felt the need to fill the space with something, but he didn't need to apologize for what he said.

Nikki Haley just did her theatrical walk out when the Palestinian envoy to the UN started to speak.

god she blows

Hamas can turn anything into a weapon of terror. pic.twitter.com/7v8RmGfN4o

— IDF (@IDFSpokesperson) May 15, 2018

ROPE TIED TO FENCE

Just allow them to have the same weapons you have and they wouldn't need to be this 'inventive'. Level playing field an' all.

worst game of Clue ever

A Canadian doctor in Gaza who was recently shot is active on Reddit and talking about the protests, the occupation, treating bullet wounds, and a lot more

https://www.reddit.com/user/_tarek_/comments/

https://www.jpost.com/Breaking-News/Russia-Israel-agree-to-keep-Iran-and-Hezbollah-from-border-558580

this seems like good news

in terms of preventing regional conflagration

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-44358039

IMF encouraged austerity measures result in poor and middle class protests in Jordan and the Prime Minister resigning

Mr Mulki had refused to scrap the bill, saying it was up to parliament to decide whether to pass it or not.

His government said it needed the money to fund public services and said the new tax bill would mean higher earners pay more.

But protesters feared it would further worsen living standards. In recent years, Jordanians have seen prices rise with salaries failing to keep up.

Jordan's economy has struggled to grow in the past few years in the face of chronic deficits, as private foreign investment and aid has declined.

In 2016, Jordan secured a $723m, three-year credit line from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Since then, austerity measures agreed with the IMF have caused the price of basic goods and services to rise steadily.

Last Wednesday, demonstrations began when thousands held strike action against proposed income tax rises at a time when ordinary Jordanians were already struggling with inflation.

http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/all-you-need-know-about-protests-jordan-1605243591

Meanwhile in Yemen:

sources have said that the Trump administration is considering giving direct support to seize the country’s main port for humanitarian aid.

First reported by the Wall Street Journal, the move would expand U.S. involvement in the brutal civil war that has been raging since 2014.

The United Arab Emirates has asked the U.S. to assist the Saudi-led coalition to retake Hodeidah.

U.S. officials told the Journal that the coalition will not act without U.S. support. But a high-ranking official told the newspaper that the administration has a “lot of concerns about a Hodeidah operation.”

“We are not 100 percent comfortable that, even if the coalition did launch an attack, that they would be able to do it cleanly and avoid a catastrophic incident,” the official said.

Administration officials are expected to meet today to discuss next steps, according to the Journal.

Experts have called the ongoing war the world’s “largest humanitarian crisis,” with millions facing starvation, lack of access to clean water and a cholera outbreak that likely involves more than 1 million people.

https://www.militarytimes.com/flashpoints/2018/06/04/report-trump-mulling-direct-us-military-action-to-take-yemen-port/

IMF tax plan being contemplated by Jordan legislature protests continue in Jordan despite Prime Minister resigning. King Abdullah weighs in:

Education minister and former World Bank economist Omar al-Razzaz has replaced former Prime Minister Hani Mulki, who resigned on Monday.

The protests in Jordan, a key Western ally, are the biggest in years.

Demonstrators say a new tax bill backed by the International Monetary Fund will hurt the poor and middle class.

The former PM had refused to scrap the proposals, which include higher taxes and more austerity measures.

In the letter appointing Mr Razzaz to form a new government on Tuesday, King Abdullah said that the cabinet "must carry out a comprehensive review of the tax system" to avoid "unjust taxes that do not achieve justice and balance between the incomes of the poor and the rich".

The previous evening, the monarch warned that Jordan risked entering "the unknown" if it failed to find a way out of the current crisis, Jordan's Petra news agency reported.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-44375827

IMF clearly being shown the blowback to austerity is the rise of right wing populist fascists and they keep going about their business

Fela once said a long time ago that IMF stands for International Mother F’ers and nothing seems to have changed since

Long New Yorker article on Israel/US relationship and how it has changed over the years from President 44 to 45(plus lots of details re Abbas, Bibi, and more) looks like an interesting read (just skimmed it) even if it will most likely just confirm bottom lines we already know

Turkish election tomorrow!

Genuinely in the balance for the first time in ages.

I can't imagine Erdogan being allowed to lose.

the leader of the center-left opposition is called (most likely not going to be nicknamed The Guv'nor by colleagues) Muharrem Ince.

It’s not officially a Turkish election until this happens:

https://s15.postimg.cc/liohskcob/C7942_ADD-2_C01-4751-_AC15-86_E506_F048_CB.jpg

Not sure Erdogan is going to get the 50% he needs to avoid a run-off with Ince. There will be a huge mobilisation against him if it’s head-to-head.

Nusret Gökçe, globally known as “Salt Bae” for his meat-cutting and salt-drizzling skills..

you can see by how he votes that he's erm ... got some skills.

Turkey’s Supreme Election Council (YSK) has announced that it will look into complaints regarding election safety issues in the Suruç district of the southeastern province of Şanlıurfa following claims of vote-rigging.

The main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) earlier on June 24 appealed to the YSK, asking the election body to take action following allegations regarding voting irregularities and other allegations that some election observers were not allowed to do their jobs and they were even attacked at balloting stations in Suruç and some other districts of Şanlıurfa, daily Cumhuriyet has reported.

Anadolu News Agency says that Erdogan has 53% with 89%of votes counted. Has been ticking down closer to 50 the more votes are counted.

Ince reckons they’ve actually only counted 40% so don’t expect him to concede.

The map tells the story.

Latest results in presidential vote in #TurkeyElections as of 9.30 pm:

Boxes opened: 89%

Erdogan: 53.4%
Ince: 30.3%
Demirtas: 7.6%
Aksener: 7.4%
Karamollaoglu: 0.9%
Perincek: 0.2%

Find more at https://t.co/EcC7DcnkdK and https://t.co/pCgJ7oPKXj#Secim2018 pic.twitter.com/32YJo1Wbpn

— ANADOLU AGENCY (ENG) (@anadoluagency) June 24, 2018

Has been ticking down closer to 50 the more votes are counted.

It is said that where there's a will, there's a way. I am sure Erdogan will find a way to win. Or else appear to. Either way works for his purposes.

It has been glitchy all night, but it looks like the opposition's own vote tally is going to show an Erdoğan first round victory. pic.twitter.com/HnshQVRJGz

— Ankaralı Jan (@06JAnk) June 24, 2018

Looks more or less a done deal on a first round victory.

The good news is that the Kurdish party got over the 10% required for parliamentary representation in the other ballot.

Why did anyone ever think it could turn out any different?

I trebled it with Putin's election victory and Celtic winning the title and made a penny!

The election may have some irregularities but isn’t exactly 100% rigged and there was a sense of urgency, at least in Istanbul and Ankara, that went along with the idea that this could end up being the most important election in Turkey’s history (or if you’re more pessimistic, the last election in Turkey’s history) to drive turnout.

Celtic far less of a surefire bet than Putin or Erdogan tbh.

What is that red dot to the east?

Tunceli, where Erdogan got 18%

Interesting. Will check up on the story of that.

Kurds.