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

But not Kurds who voted for the main Kurdish party - there’s a subset called the Alevi I don’t know much about who live there.

Will Assad really agree not to have Iran or other militias in areas near Israel he is currently recapturing (via his usual brutality)? See article below

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-assad-to-retake-southwest-syria-israel-to-decide-whether-to-intervene-1.6217834

The Syrian civil war is apparently entering a new phase. After having scored numerous military successes over the last two years, the Assad regime, with Russian air support, is preparing to retake the country’s southwest. This is an area with symbolic importance (the uprising against Syrian President Bashar Assad began in Daraa in 2011), but also practical importance, since it abuts both Jordan and Israel.

...Israel wants stability on its border. It has also frequently denounced the Assad regime for slaughtering its own citizens and using chemical weapons. But would it necessarily oppose the Syrian Army’s return to its border in the Golan Heights, if the Iranians were removed from the area at the same time?

In recent years, Israel has given food, clothing and medicine to residents of Sunni Syrian villages near its border. Thousands of Syrians have also entered Israel for medical treatment. Western media reports say Israel has also given rebel militias in those areas arms and ammunition as well. Israel denies this, but recently those denials have sounded less forceful than in the past.

Along with fighting the rebels, the Assad regime has mercilessly slaughtered residents of towns under their control. In many cases, it battered besieged towns with air strikes and artillery until they surrendered.

Thus Israel’s leadership will soon face a dilemma. In internal discussions, some defense officials, including officers in the army’s Northern Command, have said Israel has a humanitarian obligation to residents of these border villages.

Nevertheless, it’s hard to imagine that the public would support risking Israeli soldiers’ lives to save Arab citizens of an enemy country. It’s more likely that Israel won’t intervene directly in the fighting, but will try to make the regime’s return to the border region contingent on an agreement to remove Iranian forces and the Shi’ite militias from it.

Deraa has been completely burnt to the ground," Jihad al-Ali, a 26-year-old paramedic in Deraa told Al Jazeera as he described the effect of the ongoing attacks since Wednesday evening.

Syrian government forces launched the military push on June 19 in an attempt to retake the southern provinces of Deraa, Quneitra and parts of Sweida, mostly held by opposition fighters.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/06/syria-war-deraa-burnt-ground-180628095132419.html

The whole 'thousands of years of conflict' thing re Israel and Palestine is something I've probably screeched myself on here at some point but also a framework we really need to work against no

It nicely absolves the British, Ottoman and Russian empires for their behaviour in the 20th century for one thing and sticks all the blame on those inherently-violent Jews and Arabs

Müslüm Gündüz, the head sheikh of the hardline Aczmendi sect, told the Islamist TV channel Akit TV that those inspired by the founder of the Turkish republic should be forced out of the country, left-wing news site Gazete Tamam said .

“We know the Kemalists well and they know us well. Either they will leave this country or we will. While we are around, the Kemalists cannot be at ease,” Gündüz said.

“Kemalism is against human nature. It is against human morality. It is a system to force Anatolian people to be immoral.”

Kemalism, an ideology named after founding president of Turkey Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, has been a major secular force in Turkish politics since that time.

But the ideology made people into anarchists and terrorists, Gündüz said.

The Kemalist opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) was a “religious movement” trying to compete with Islam, he added.

Basically calling for a purge of secularists?

He has been saying the same thing since 1996.

I wouldn't bet he has more followers than the average Turkish high school has pictures of Ataturk, tbh.

let's hope so. I've not heard much good news coming out of turkey

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/israeli-saudi-and-emirati-officials-privately-pushed-for-trump-to-strike-a-grand-bargain-with-putin

During a private meeting shortly before the November, 2016, election, Mohammed bin Zayed, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, floated to a longtime American interlocutor what sounded, at the time, like an unlikely grand bargain. The Emirati leader told the American that Vladimir Putin, the Russian President, might be interested in resolving the conflict in Syria in exchange for the lifting of sanctions imposed in response to Russia’s actions in Ukraine.

Current and former U.S. officials said that bin Zayed, known as M.B.Z., was not the only leader in the region who favored rapprochement between the former Cold War adversaries. While America’s closest allies in Europe viewed with a sense of dread Trump’s interest in partnering with Putin, three countries that enjoyed unparallelled influence with the incoming Administration—Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the U.A.E.—privately embraced the goal. Officials from the three countries have repeatedly encouraged their American counterparts to consider ending the Ukraine-related sanctions in return for Putin’s help in removing Iranian forces from Syria.

Experts say that such a deal would be unworkable, even if Trump were interested. They say Putin has neither the interest nor the ability to pressure Iranian forces to leave Syria. Administration officials have said that Syria and Ukraine will be among the topics that Trump and Putin will discuss at their summit in Helsinki on July 16th. White House officials did not respond to a request for comment.

This looks very plausible to me - both sides exploring back-channels, encouraged by shared allies, to see whether they could reach a mutually-beneficial foreign policy arrangement and both coming to the conclusion that they couldn't. I doubt the Trump side has given up hope completely, given how central Iran is to a lot of their thinking, but i can't really envisage Russia changing position.

Meanwhile, Assad's brutal campaign marches on through Daraa where the revolution first began...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/syrian-rebels-agree-to-give-up-daraa-cradle-of-2011-revolt/2018/07/12/ae882330-85bf-11e8-9e06-4db52ac42e05_story.html?utm_term=.4dd05a33dedc

For the first time in more than seven years, the Syrian government raised its flag Thursday over Daraa, the first city to revolt against President Bashar Assad in 2011 and plunge the country into its calamitous civil war.

The display is laden with symbolism as the government moves to stamp out the last of the uprising against the 52-year-old Assad who has ruled with an iron fist over Syria for 18 years. His father Hafez Assad was president for three decades before him.

Officials accompanied by state media crews hoisted the two-star flag over the rubble of the city’s main square, allowing it to wave in sight of the shell of the Omari Mosque where protesters first gathered in demonstrations demanding reforms then Assad’s ouster in the spring of 2011.

The mosque has since been destroyed in the government’s brutal crackdown against the city, which ranged from alleged torturing of dissidents to shelling the city with tanks and planes.

A (recently turned right-wing) friend of mine posted an article saying that Syria was welcoming back the people who had fled, so why should we give them asylum. The worst.

Welcome back! We kill you now.

Thought this was really interesting: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/27/sunday-review/obama-egypt-coup-trump.html

Yes, a good article.

And talking of fault lines within an administration...

https://www.dailysabah.com/diplomacy/2018/07/27/turkey-blames-pence-as-brunson-drama-reveals-fault-lines-inside-trump-administration

"Together we can rebuild it... Afrin". #WhiteHelmets are set and ready to go in the city of #Afrin for their latest community work campaigns to restore the city to its former beauty and utility. #Syria pic.twitter.com/wEwR7X3xC2

— The White Helmets (@SyriaCivilDef) August 1, 2018

kind of a gross tweet considering the turks and islamists just ethnically cleansed Afrin

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/saudi-arabia-ruptures-ties-with-canada-serving-notice-to-would-be-critics/2018/08/06/5ad193f6-99a7-11e8-b55e-5002300ef004_story.html?utm_term=.69f28676839a

It was hardly the first time the kingdom, an absolute monarchy, had been chided for human rights abuses, or even the first time Canada had criticized the Saudi government since it started arresting the female activists in May. But under Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s young crown prince, a kingdom once known for its go-slow approach to foreign affairs has frequently reacted to perceived challenges from abroad with haste, spit and fire, analysts said.

"In These Times" re US support of Saudi Arabia in Yemen--

Yemenis require much more than vague assurances and promises. What Yemenis need is for the United States to end all its support to the Saudi-led coalition, which includes pulling out troops from the Saudi-Yemen border, ending all refueling missions and targeting assistance, ending all military contracts involving the training of Saudi military personnel and the maintenance of military vehicles and aircraft, and ending all sales of weapons to Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

http://inthesetimes.com/article/21361/yemen-war-national-defense-authorization-act-bombing-civilians-saudi-arabia

How much oil does Yemen have?

(That was rhetorical. It's not much, Nexen Canada operated the main field in Yemen, was bought out by Chinese CNOOC in 2012, who are abandoning it).

Yep.