Dubai: The political model

The emirate of Dubai has in the past few decades been more than a shiny example of glitzy capitalism and the insulation from the repercussions (and responsibilities) of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

It has represented the type of political model which has been promoted to the Arabs, by their rulers and by the West.

When George W Bush, the former US president, visited the United Arab Emirates during his last year in office, he praised Dubai and its models of economic and political prosperity; he promoted the UAE's mantra and ethos as glimmers of hope to the new generation of Arabs.

It took the former president little more than a few hours during his stop-over to assess the conditions in the region, and to reach his conclusions: resistance to Israel clashes with the type of prosperity that was prevalent in Dubai.

Dubai hit a dramatic rise in the 1990s and became a success story that was carefully calibrated, promoted and disseminated in the Arab media and collective psyche.

Daniel Pipes, who has a reputation for hostility towards Arabs and Muslims, was interviewed two years ago in the Jerusalem Post praising Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai, after the release of his memoirs.

There was not one word about Palestine in that book which nevertheless offered a recipe of unregulated and unrestricted capitalism.

Dubai was supposed to be the antithesis of Palestine. It was designed to create a concrete Utopia that would encourage all young Arabs to forget about their political aspirations and dreams.

In Lebanon, the March 14 opposition movement has been posing this question to the Lebanese people for three years: Hanoi or Dubai? But Hanoi is today a far more promising model than Dubai.

Not only has Hanoi been liberated from foreign occupation and a corrupt puppet regime, but it has also become part of a sovereign country with a record of fast economic growth.

Much has been written about Dubai and even more will be written about the emirate which was positioned as the success story that all Arabs were to emulate.

However, its success is not based on sound economic or classical political theories. It was in fact a projection of what the West wanted to see in the Middle East.

This projection represented the fruits of US co-operation with Middle Eastern governments, especially in the realm of defence and national security. Dubai was more important for the US due to military intelligence co-operation than for its lavish seven-star hotels.

Dubai was supposed to be a vision but one not rooted in the productive sectors of the economy.

There were early warnings of the debacle that struck Dubai World - too much glitz and ostentation and little attention to a careful building of culture and economy that reflect the region.

There was a rush to build multi-billion dollar artificial ski slopes and playgrounds for the very rich of the world.

But Dubai did not want to be part of the region, politically speaking. Instead it modelled itself as a copy of Las Vegas in the heart of the Arab Middle East.

Dubai carefully steered away from all the issues that alarmed and agitated Arab public opinion.

More at Al Jazeera

United by their grief

A Palestinian whose brother was shot in the head by an Israeli soldier. An Israeli mother who lost a son to a Palestinian sniper. Brought together by a bereavement group, with members from both sides of the conflict, they are now spreading a message of peace.
ByRachel Shabi

Nobody could doubt the friendship between them. As they speak together in public they exchange ideas and support. On stage, he gives her hand a reassuring squeeze during tough moments.

Her eyes sparkle with admiration as his powerful words generate ripples of applause throughout the audience. They share the headset for a simultaneous translation device – an earpiece each – when caught short.

Robi Damelin and Ali Abu Awwad come across as close, trusting friends. But according to the political narrative of their region, they should be the worst of enemies.

Robi Damelin is a 65-year-old Israeli whose son David was killed by a Palestinian sniper seven years ago, while he was serving military reserve duty in the occupied West Bank.

The 37-year old Palestinian Ali Abu Awwad lost his elder brother Yousef in 2000, when an Israeli soldier shot him in the head just outside the family’s home village near Hebron.

Now the two speak together all over the world, to the media and to parliaments, at public events and in schools, synagogues and mosques.

They are united in their message, calling for reconciliation between their two sides, which have for decades been locked in a brutal, deadly conflict.

Read more at The National

Islamic best War's Strategy: deceiving Others

Bin Laden Lying to the West to Defame Israel
Wednesday, September 16, 2009 4:58 PM - Tawfik Hamid

I have listened to the latest Osama bin Laden tape in Arabic on Al-Jazeera TV. He released it in memory of Sept. 11. It was clear that bin Laden was trying to convince a Western audience that the attack on the Twin Towers on 9/11, and the larger phenomenon of Islamist violence, is caused by the Arab-Israeli conflict. He argued that the land of Palestine belongs to Muslims rather than the Jews, and that Muslims will never forget this.
This tape raised some questions that need to be answered:
 Is bin Laden trying to convince us that his fellow jihadists in Iraq, Algeria, and Pakistan — who explode mosques, detonate Muslim funerals to kill innocents, and behead their fellow Muslims — are committing these barbaric atrocities because of the Arab-Israeli conflict?
 If the cause of terrorism against the West is the Arab-Israeli conflict, why don’t the Christians in the Middle East, who live under the same circumstances, commit suicide bombings and attack Western targets as their fellow Muslims do?
 If the cause of Islamic terrorism is the “occupation” of the Arab land, as bin Laden claimed, how can he explain the lower levels of terrorism against the West between 1967 and 1993, when the Palestinians started to take more control over the West Bank and Gaza as stipulated by Oslo Accords? During the pre-1993 period Israel fully controlled the West Bank and Gaza, but Islamic terrorism was much less common than we see today. In brief, terrorist acts by radical Muslims became much more frequent after Israel started to withdraw from these areas and cede them to Palestinian control.
 If bin Laden is using Islam in his argument and trying to convince his followers that he is a good Muslim who follows the Quran, why does he not then apply the Quranic verses that clearly and unambiguously state that the Holy Land belongs to the Children of Israel? These include the following verses:

Read further here: http://www.newsmax.com/tawfik_hamid/bin_laden_israel_palestin/2009/09/16/260977.html

King Abdullah warns Obama against delay on Middle East peace deal

Richard Beeston and Michael Binyon | May 11

THE United States is putting the final touches to a hugely ambitious peace plan for the Middle East, aimed at ending more than 60 years of conflict between Israel and the Arabs, according to Jordan's King Abdullah, who is helping to bring the parties together.

The Obama administration is pushing for a comprehensive peace agreement that would include settling Israel's conflict with the Palestinians and its territorial disputes with Syria and Lebanon, King Abdullah II told The Times.

Failure to reach agreement at this critical juncture would draw the world into a new Middle East war next year.

"If we delay our peace negotiations, then there is going to be another conflict between Arabs or Muslims and Israel in the next 12-18 months," the King said.

Details of the plan are likely to be thrashed out in a series of diplomatic moves this month, chief among them is President Obama's meeting with Binyamin Netanyahu, the right-wing Israeli Prime Minister, in Washington next week.

The initiative could form the centrepiece for Mr Obama's much-anticipated address to the Muslim world in Cairo on June 4. A peace conference could then take place involving all the parties as early as July or August. Such an ambitious project has not been attempted since 1991, when the first Bush Administration assembled all the parties for a peace conference in Madrid.

"What we are talking about is not Israelis and Palestinians sitting at the table, but Israelis sitting with Palestinians, Israelis sitting with Syrians, Israelis sitting with Lebanese," said the King, who hatched the plan with Mr Obama in Washington last month. He added that if Mr Obama did not make good his promise for peace, then his credibility would evaporate overnight.

The Israeli Government has so far rejected any moves that would lead to a two-state solution, the creation of a Palestinian state living side by side with Israel, but the King insisted that what was being proposed was a "57-state solution", whereby the Arab and entire Muslim world would recognise the Jewish state as part of the deal.

"We are offering a third of the world to meet them with open arms," said the King. "The future is not the Jordan river or the Golan Heights or the Sinai, the future is Morocco in the Atlantic and Indonesia in the Pacific. That is the prize."

As an incentive to Israel to freeze the building of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, a key step in any peace process, Arab parties may offer incentives, such as the right for El Al, the Israeli airline, to fly over Arab air space and visas for Israeli tourists to Arab states.

Mr Netanyahu told the Israeli Cabinet, however, that he had no intention of leaving the Golan Heights, which Israel seized from Syria in 1967.

Syria, which only last week was accused by Washington of being a state sponsor of terrorism, presents a huge challenge. The King, who is visiting Damascus today, insisted that the Syrians could be brought in from the cold.

Source: The Australian

Walid Shoebat - Former PLO Terrorist who speaks out for Israel

The Holocaust never ended but the victims have decided to defend themselves.

The occupation is in the minds of Children who are taught hatred.

Israel was the solution for the world’s greatest refugee problem that went on for two thousand years

Why is it that on June 4th 1967 I was a Jordanian and overnight I became a Palestinian?

When I finally realized the lies and myths I was taught, it is my duty as a righteous person to speak out

The Israeli Arab Conflict is not about geography but about Jew hatred. Throughout the Islamic as well as Christendom's history Jews have been persecuted, the persecution of Israel is just the same as the old antisemitism.

The Arab refugees are being used as pawns' to create a terror breeding ground, as a form of aggression against Israel.

The Arab refugee problem was caused by Arab aggression and not Israel. Why should Israel be responsible for their fate?

No one (Arab or Jew) has a "right of return". Jews who fled Arab persecution from 1948 to 1956 should have no right of return to Arab lands, and Arabs who ran away in 1948 and 1967 should have no right of return either. This should end all argument. Yet the Jews accept this judgment, while the Arabs reject EVERYTHING.

Source: www.shoebat.com
H/T: WeaselZippers