Iran’s election: False hopes of a moderate path

Nervana

Iran elections photo

( Iran’s Supreme Leader Khamenei –via The Guardian) 

Last Friday, Iranians voted in the country’s presidential election, favoring current President Hassan Rouhani with 56.9% of the votes, defeating his hardliner rival Raisi, who scored only 38.5. Reformist candidates have also swept municipal elections in the Iranian capital, taking all 21 seats in Tehran. Following his victory, Rouhani pledged to open Iran to the world and deliver the freedom its people have yearned for. Rouhani’s re-election, however, will not inch the Islamic Republic towards a future moderate path.

The Islamic Republic has three major advantages over its Arab neighbours: It has no foreign patron; has never faced a humiliating military defeat; and its isolation has lowered the expectations of its citizens.

Iran has no foreign patron that demands or expects a softer stance. In fact, since the Mullahs ousted the late Shah of Iran, they have focused on being patrons…

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Egypt’s Come-to-Jesus Moment

salamamoussa

Copts_FuneralSamuel Tadros, a chronicler of modern Egypt and its Copts, opens his new op-ed for the New York Times with a passionate and moody warning from a friend:  “At this rate Copts will be extinct in 100 years. They will die, leave, convert or get killed”. Many Copts disagreed with this sentiment, both privately and publicly. There seems to be a serene faith that it is God’s plan for Egypt to remain a Christian country, and that no evil human plot can contradict that. In a 2013 review of Tadros’s book “Motherland lost” this blogger noted  “more painful than contemplating how Copts might fare when shorn of Egypt is the thought of how Egypt might fare when shorn of the Copts”. This still holds true. The very act of exterminating Christianity from Egypt will so painful, so wrenching, certainly for Copts, but more so for…

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U.S. Jewish activist to undergo surgery on arm broken by Israeli cops | +972 Magazine

Wednesday’s protest against Jerusalem Day, a highly-charged, intensely nationalistic and consistently violent affair, came as well over 100 American Jews are in Israel-Palestine participating in anti-occupation activism. The “Sumud Freedom Camp,” a Standing Rock-inspired protest encampment set up by Palestinians, Israelis and diaspora Jews, is currently in its ninth day, having already been dismantled twice by the Israeli army.Police and army violence is near-automatic in response to demonstrations by Palestinians, Ethiopian Israelis, and Israeli photojournalists and anti-occupation activists who attend protests in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The presence of diaspora Jews has traditionally stayed the authorities’ hand, but as Jews from around the world head to Israel-Palestine in order to step up their nonviolent activism against the occupation, it seems that the authorities are responding in kind.

Source: U.S. Jewish activist to undergo surgery on arm broken by Israeli cops | +972 Magazine

PA… Betrayal is a state of mind

Sad beyond words – when the leaders of the communities succumb to the poison of racism and occupation.

نادية حرحش

Amad, A Palestinian News Agency, revealed today exchanges of letters between the Palestinian Authority and the Israeli government, through the channel of the coordination offices from both sides. The letters exposed the request of the PA to cut off the Electricity from Gaza, declaring that they will no longer pay the electricity bills concerning Gaza.
The exchange between the two sides that is clearly explained in the letters. I have to say it feels so shameful, embarrassing, I cannot but add that we had reached that day when betrayal became a state of mind.

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Inoreader – PA… Betrayal is a state of mind

Amad, A Palestinian News Agency, revealed today exchanges of letters between the Palestinian Authority and the Israeli government, through the channel of the coordination offices from both sides. The letters exposed the request of the PA to cut off the Electricity from Gaza, declaring that they will no longer pay the electricity bills concerning Gaza.The exchange between the two sides that is clearly explained in the letters. I have to say it feels so shameful, embarrassing, I cannot but add that we had reached that day when betrayal became a state of mind.

Source: Inoreader – PA… Betrayal is a state of mind

Uruguay, the first country where you can smoke marijuana wherever you like | Society | The Guardian

The registry was opened at the beginning of May. So far about 3,500 people (out of Uruguay’s population of 3.4 million) have signed up to buy marijuana at pharmacies. Additionally, since 2014 about 6,700 have signed up as home growers and 57 cannabis clubs have been set up, according to the government’s Cannabis Regulation and Control Institute.Despite the media attention, sales seem to be likely to get off to a slow start. “Only 30 of the country’s 1,000 pharmacies have signed up to sell marijuana so far,” says Alejandro Antalich, vice-president of the Uruguayan pharmacies association.“Our society can be conservative, resistant to change, so there is still uncertainty and many pharmacists are waiting to see how the system works before signing up to sell. There is also fear of reprisals against pharmacies from corner drug traffickers upset at losing their clients.”Castilla also has mixed feelings about the new law. “I would like to see full freedom to plant in your own home,” she says.Has she registered to plant or buy. “No, I haven’t.” Is she still growing at home? “Yes, I am.” Isn’t she afraid of falling foul of the new law? “I don’t think they’d dare come after me again,” says Castilla with a twinkle in her eye.

Source: Uruguay, the first country where you can smoke marijuana wherever you like | Society | The Guardian

A Muslim-American Activist’s Speech Raises Ire Even Before It’s Delivered – The New York Times

Brad Lander, a Democratic city councilman from Brooklyn, described the accusations against Ms. Sarsour as “preposterous,” and pointed to her help in raising money to repair two Jewish cemeteries that were vandalized in St. Louis and Pennsylvania in February.“She’s been in my synagogue,” he said. “She and my rabbi are friends. There’s no doubt that part of what this is is backlash against the idea of having a Palestinian-American as a visible leader and inheritor of the civil rights movement.”He added, “One terrible feature of the Trump regime is that it threatens to tribalize all of us.”

Kushner Talked to Russian Envoy About Creating Secret Channel With Kremlin – The New York Times

Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, spoke last December with Russia’s ambassador to the United States about establishing a secret communications channel between the Trump transition team and Moscow to discuss strategy in Syria and other policy issues, according to three people with knowledge of the discussion.The conversation between Mr. Kushner and the ambassador, Sergey I. Kislyak, took place during a meeting at Trump Tower that Mr. Trump’s presidential transition team did not acknowledge at the time. Also present at the meeting was Michael T. Flynn, the retired general who would become Mr. Trump’s short-lived national security adviser, the three people said.

Jared Kushner discussed creating secret communications channel with Moscow – reports | US news | The Guardian

Jared Kushner and Russia’s ambassador to Washington allegedly discussed setting up a secret communications channel to cloak contacts between Moscow and Donald Trump’s White House transition team, it was reported on Friday.Ambassador Sergei Kislyak told his superiors in Moscow that he and Kushner discussed ways to shield their pre-inauguration discussions from monitoring, the Washington Post said, citing US officials briefed on intelligence reports.

Source: Jared Kushner discussed creating secret communications channel with Moscow – reports | US news | The Guardian

Why Would Jared Kushner Want a Secret Channel to Moscow? – The Atlantic

Jared Kushner, a senior adviser to President Trump and his son-in-law, suggested to Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak that he be allowed to use Russian diplomatic facilities to communicate securely with Moscow, The Washington Post reported on Friday.The request reportedly came in a meeting in Trump Tower at the beginning of December that included Kushner, Kislyak, and former National-Security Adviser Michael Flynn. It came to the attention of American officials through intercepts of Russian communications in which Kislyak relayed the request to his superiors in Moscow; the officials who spoke to the Post specified that they were not monitoring either the meeting or the communications of the Americans who were present.”For employee-security rules, the U.S intelligence community treats visiting a foreign embassy like visiting a foreign country. Many of the most significant examples of U.S. espionage all occurred through foreign embassies,” said Susan Hennessy, a Brookings fellow and a former attorney in the National Security Agency’s office of general counsel. “Like Flynn, there’s the possibility that Kushner put himself in a position to be compromised, because the Russians knew he tried to set up a secret channel.”

Source: Why Would Jared Kushner Want a Secret Channel to Moscow? – The Atlantic

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