Corruption and brutality in Saudi Arabia; a revolution is sorely needed in that country. And once again, America’s complicity is clear for all to see: When Saudi King Abdullah arrived home last week, he came bearing gifts: handouts worth $37 billion, apparently intended to placate Saudis of modest means and insulate the world’s biggest oil…
Showing all posts tagged Saudi Arabia
Ongoing importance of separating Zionism and Judaism
The following interview by Sam Whiteley appears in today’s West Australian: Freelance journalist Antony Loewenstein is no stranger to controversy. “The silence is over,” says Loewenstein, author of My Israel Question which generated a swell of public debate and was shortlisted for the 2007 New South Wales Premier’s Literary Award. Co-founder of Independent Australian Jewish…
Arms dealers see Middle East uprisings as a money spinner
How many Western governments are offering financial incentives for these leeches to sell death? Most of them: As Libya’s Moammar Gaddafi ordered attacks on his own people this week, thousands of arms sellers from the United States and other countries hawked their aircraft, riot gear and rifles to Middle Eastern buyers at the Persian Gulf’s…
Saudi Arabia’s answer to internal dissent?
Throw money as its citizens. Washington has no problem at all with the brutal rule of King Abdullah. It’s all about oil, baby:
Somebody tell David Cameron; Kuwait isn’t a democracy
Oh dear: Opponents of Britain’s arms trade are “completely at odds with reality”, David Cameron said, as he hit out critics of his three-day visit to the Gulf. In a staunch defence of Britain’s arms exports, as he tours the region with a group of senior defence manufacturers, Cameron said it was wrong to leave…
Egypt’s internet kill switch; it will be used again and elsewhere
Internet users and activists in repressive regimes need to be extra careful, protecting themselves from prying state eyes: Epitaphs for the Mubarak government all note that the mobilizing power of the Internet was one of the Egyptian opposition’s most potent weapons. But quickly lost in the swirl of revolution was the government’s ferocious counterattack, a…
What New Delhi can learn from Cairo
My following article is published by leading Indian magazine Tehelka: The Middle East is the region where global empires lavishly exercise their chequebook. Since the Second World War, America has bribed, cajoled and backed autocratic regimes in the name of stability. Israel, self-described as the only democracy in the area, has been insulated from the…
No peace treaty ever told Egypt to banish Arabs
Ali Abunimah is spot on: On many minds — especially Israeli and American ones — has been the question of whether a new democratic Egyptian government will tear up the 1979 peace treaty with Israel. That of course, is up to the Egyptian people, although the transitional military government confirmed in its fourth statement Egypt’s…
The fallacy of “moderate” Middle East client states
This is what happens when Washington (and the West) gets into bed with fundamentalist misogynists. Israel calls Saudi Arabia “moderate” because it seemingly tolerates Zionist occupation: The US fears that Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest crude oil exporter, may not have enough reserves to prevent oil prices escalating, confidential cables from its embassy in Riyadh…
Israel doesn’t believe in Egyptian democracy
My following article appears in today’s edition of Crikey: While the Egyptian masses are uprising in unprecedented ways across the country against a Western-backed dictator, Israel fears the worst. The country’s President Shimon Peres said last week that, “no matter what they say, we owe Mubarak true gratitude for being as steadfast as a rock…