Not Anonymous

In Alphabetical order and a tiny bit of commentary:

Algeria: Defying a ban, protesters demonstrate in heavily policed Algiers. The demonstrations in Algeria in early January due to food shortages, but really, the poverty level in a country that is very rich in natural resources (and a long term dictator) showed it was a matter of time.

Bahrain: Bahrain mourner killed in clashes during another protester's funeral. The violence coming from the government in response to the protests has been overwhelming.

Iran: Police confirm protest death. The Reformists demonstrations never stopped, it just wasn't reported with the same fervor as when it started, but now that fire is sweeping through the region, it makes sense that the demo's are gathering greater numbers and are being suppressed with more violence.

Israel: While the region begins it's slow slog towards something resembling democratic process, we continue to dig our heels is and write out racist legislation like a Bill proposes discount in tuition fees for soldiers - meaning that higher education will become even more inaccessible than it already is to the working class - it is racist and ethnically based because the only ones drafted are Jews and the Druze (only men in this case) meaning that those who do not serve (i.e. Arabs, who also happen to be the most economically disenfranchised) will find it very hard to study at university, creating an even greater disparity between classes that (miraculously) coincide with ethnic and religious groups.

Palestine: Palestinian government resigns in hope of fresh start. Allow me to be more scathing than usual. The PA is so scared of what's happening in the region, the fact that just a few days about Saeb Ereakat resigned because of the Palestine Papers that they'll do anything to make appearnces of appeasement, while they suppress anti-PA demonstrations. Hamas, by the way, will not be running in these elections as it rejects Fatah authority. Like this schism is anything new.

Syria: Schoolgirl blogger jailed. A week after Syria opens their internet up for Twitter and Facebook. The Asad regime is in survival mode, it has been for years now.

Yemen: Yemen protests enter fifth day. The numbers are small, and there isn't a huge presence of women in Sanaa, but following reports on Twitter informs me that there was sizable female presence in Taizz.

That's what I got.

From idiomagic

A letter from Fayah:

"I love life. I love to laugh and be with my friends. There are so many books I want to read, movies I want to see, people I want to meet. I want to marry, to be a good wife and mother. I want to grow old with the people I love, to feel the sun on my face, to see the ocean, to travel.

My country is in a terrible state. People have no jobs. There is no money. People have no freedom. Women must hide themselves from the world, and we have no choices.

Our people--we are not terrorists. We hate terrorists. And that is what our government has become. They kill our people for no reason. They torture us in their prisons because we want freedom. They make our country look evil, they make our religion look evil.

We are fighting for our freedom, for our religion, for our country. If we do nothing while injustice abounds, we become unjust. We turn into the ones we hate.

I have to fight. I have to go back on the streets. I will make them kill me. I will join Neda, with my friends, and then maybe the world will hear us.

I never thought I would become a martyr, but it is needed. The more of us they kill, the smaller they become, the more strength the people will have. Maybe my death will mean nothing, but maybe it will buy my country freedom.

I am very sad that I will never be a mother, that I will never do the things I love, but I would rather die than do nothing and know that I am to blame for the tortures, the murder, the hatred.

Please tell the world how much we love life. That we are not terrorists. We just want to be free."

There is such a ton of information pouring out of ontd_political regarding Iran I just can't keep up! The comments are a constant update for me because I'm not following Twitter - yeah, yeah, call me a Luddite.
My Facebook is a stealth one, I'm just not keen on that kind of information sharing, which is what's making this Iran uprising both effective and so bloody dangerous for the people actively twitting and facebooking etc.

The mainstream media is just failing.

I'm mainly following BBC, Al-Jazeera and Ha'aretz and my god, stop looking at this as though this is a game of "Risk" or "Diplomacy" - this ruthless game in which Nations are monoliths and the people who actually make up that society are relegated to spectacles of violence.

Robert Fisk of The Independent wrote a brilliant article Iran's Day of Destiny.

I can't look at the Youtube footage coming out of there, same as the last time I viewed a Youtube video of a demonstration against the Separation Wall I cried for an hour.
And I've been there.
Fuck.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I'm pretty sure that this isn't going going to harbour the great change for Iran, much as the Iranian people deserve. The regime is too stable and the Mullah's are ruthless as we all know.

Last night I read an article in Ha'aretz that irritated me, because the head of the Mossad - the Israeli Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations - Meir Dagan, basically came to the same conclusion as me - that this won't be the great change - but also added this lovely little tidbit about how the Iran Elections affect Israel:

"The reality in Iran is not going to change because of the elections. The world and we already know [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad. If the reformist candidate [Mir Hossein] Mousavi had won, Israel would have had a more serious problem because it would need to explain to the world the danger of the Iranian threat, since Mousavi is perceived internationally arena as a moderate element...It is important to remember that he is the one who began Iran's nuclear program when he was prime minister."

'Cause never mind that Ahmadiniejad is a Dictator and that with Mousavi it would have been perhaps easier to actually talk to.
There would, conceivably, been a chance to actually attempt to establish an actual diplomatic relationship with Iran.
But no, their whole national agenda is to Nuke Israel.
Duh, how could I forget.
Oh and of course - their homophobia is worse than ours.

Something tangentially related - Netanayahu's speech of utter emptiness is still making headlines in these parts.
I'd say something constructive regarding him and his "reaching out" - which btw, WHAT?! - but I think my opinions about him, the ministers and the current government in general is widely known.
Basically, him uttering the combination of words "Palestinian", "State" and "Peace" are so devoid of any real meaning that I can say that if he represents the Israeli consensus, we are as empty headed and devoid of any kind of empathy that is rightfully human.
I'm not even going to bother linking to anything he said.
Seriously.

At least in Iran there is some movement.
Israel is stagnating under the perception of Democracy - which is far more complicated here that any other place I've ever heard about.

Keep resisting!

---

I suppose at some point I will reapply my "real" Facebook and get a Twitter.

I'm a follower.

I've been trying to find a way to write coherently about this subject for the past couple days, I hope I manage to make my point without confusing the hell out of you, dear readers.

Iran is a religious dictatorship. Ahmadinejad has bad PR. Iran is trying to make itself a power house in the Middle East.
Iran's treatment of women leaves much to be desired.
Ahmadinejad has gone on the record saying that Iran doesn't have homosexuals.
All these are facts.

And you know what? I don't care.
I don't care that there are worse places in the world.
Because if that's the kind of narration Israel is using in order to make itself look better... it kind of sucks.

Israel's Foreign Ministry is overseeing a new public relations campaign in which the gay LGBT community is recruited. This PR campaign is going to be used to discredit Iran through it's human rights violations.

Dude... WTF?

Beyond the callous use of an underprivileged minority in order to publicly discredit a different nation, it's a blatant attempt to deflect Israel's own human rights violations.

I'll be the first to admit, my life as a white, Jewish, able bodied cis-woman of the middle-class* in Israel is pretty good.
And in my little cultural Niche of Tel-Aviv Uni and the City itself, being a Queer isn't so bad.
I mean, I can't really complain about same-sex marriage as there is no such thing as civil marriages or union in Israel.
Sure there are common-law marriages and couples un-interested (or can't due to various issues) in marrying through the religious institutions can sign fiscal agreements or fly to countries in which you can marry though civil ceremonies - hetero couples like Cypres as it is close and cheap, at the moment the only country in which same-sex couples can have their marriage sort of recognised in Israel is Canada.
Very convenient.
There is precedent when it comes to the adoption of kids in same sex families, which again, is encouraging and quite awesome.

I suppose I should point out that the above is basically available to Israeli-Jews.

Being a heterosexual couple made out of an Arab and Jew is difficult enough and life threatening. Being a same-sex couple made out of an Arab and a Jew can be a death sentence... for both parties.
And that's within Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East.
There are Palestinian queer organisations like ASWAT, which are awesome, co-founder Rouda Morcos is one of the most inspiring women I've ever had the privilege to meet.
ASWAT criticises both Israeli and Palestinian societies, but the underlying thought is that the Palestinians society as a whole is oppressed and that in order for LGBT rights to be advanced within Palestinian (and the other Arab societies in Israel and the Occupied territories) the Occupation must end.

Is life better for Queers within Israel proper than beyond the Green Line and in our neighbouring countries? Yes, big and resounding, yes, life is better.

However, that just exemplifies the issue of Israel's own complicity in the situation in the West Bank and Gaza.

To target Iran in order to deflect Israel's own crimes is pathetic.
Yes, yes it is.

Especially when the current government will probably do next to nothing to promote LGBT rights within Israel itself, if anything there will probably be the strengthening of the religious establishment over the next couple of years.

*Did I miss anything in the privilege disclosure?

But they were not.
Which is a shame, because they are so pitiful they don't need to be parodied.

#1 Will the stupidity know no end! Were there a GD who actually smacked His/Her/Its followers upside the head. The whole region from Southern Lebanon to Southern Israel has been experiencing tectonic shifting - earthquakes that is - there was quite a big one on Friday where Mummy and I ran under a door way, it wasn't that hard, but still left my knees a bit wobbly.
Those people who are somewhat detached from reality* are trying to find metaphysical reasons why this is happening in the Holy Land.
Obviously, the gays are causing the earthquakes.
Yup, there's the sounds, rational reasoning I like to find in my leadership (well, obviously not mine-mine, I'm not considered a whole human, being a woman and a queer one to boot).

#2 Ahmadinejad is continuing his paranoid anti-Israel rhetoric. Israel is a germ spreading the vileness of the West in the Middle East. Oh, that's nice, real mature Mahmoud, way to show a fraction of sanity one would imagine a statesman should posses.
Then again he was always rabid. I wonder if he's aware of the fact that by bombing Israel with the A-Bomb, he'd end up murdering a huge amount of his Palestinian brethren... those dictators never do think of that little glitch do they.

Yes, these are serious News articles.
No, I'm not laughing because I'm too busy mocking!

*Not all religious people are detached from reality... only those in government.