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On Wednesday, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson met with senior government officials in Myanmar about the violent and ongoing persecution of the country’s Rohingya minority, which has fueled a massive refugee exodus in recent months. NPR’s Kelly McEvers speaks with Maung Zarni, fellow with the Cambodian Documentation Center, specializing in genocide in Buddhist countries, about how the Burmese justify their actions and what it would take to broker a resolution to the current crisis.

KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was in Myanmar today to urge the government there to stop the persecution of a Muslim minority called the Rohingya. Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya have fled Myanmar since August. They now live in squalid conditions across the border in Bangladesh. The U.N. has called the crisis a textbook example of ethnic cleansing. Rex Tillerson did not go that far. He said what happened, quote, “has a number of characteristics of crimes against humanity,” and he called for an independent investigation.

To talk about this more, we’re going to Maung Zarni. He is a fellow with the Cambodian Documentation Center, specializing in genocide in Buddhist countries. Welcome to the show.

MAUNG ZARNI: Thank you.

MCEVERS: Can you just take us back a little bit and help us understand why the Rohingya are persecuted in Myanmar?

ZARNI: Well, for two reasons. They are Muslims. And the other reason is because they are Muslim with their own claim on this strategic piece of borderland next to Bangladesh, the Burmese army starting in the 1960s perceive them as a threat to national security.

MCEVERS: Burma of course being the former name of Myanmar. Much of the violence in Myanmar against the Rohingya people has been carried out by the military. Human rights groups have documented mass rape. They say thousands of people have been killed. How does the military in Myanmar justify this violence to the people of the country?

ZARNI: Simply put, the military in Burma today uses what the Nazis used in the 1930s – that they have misframed the Rohingyas the way the Nazis blamed the Jewish people for everything that was wrong with the society, all the frustration and anger. So I think the military has cleverly diverted public frustration towards the Rohingya, who are completely unarmed and helpless. And they’ve been sitting ducks for the last 40 years.

MCEVERS: And human rights groups have said that Aung San Suu Kyi, the de facto leader of Myanmar, is part of the problem here. This is a woman who of course won the Nobel Peace Prize. She’s considered a champion of human rights. Yet she will not say that what’s happening to the Rohingya is ethnic cleansing. Why? Why is she not getting more involved in their case?

ZARNI: Well, you know, I’ve known her personally, and I’ve supported her for the first 15 years of my activism. And simply put, she is anti-Muslim races. She is Islamophobe. I mean, she is a big part of the problem.

MCEVERS: U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson met with her today. We know that. I mean, is she part of the solution, or is it going to have to be someone else who could turn the tide here and change what’s happening to these people?

ZARNI: Well, there is no someone else inside the country. Even Buddhist monks justify openly to the military, to the public that killing the nonbelievers, non-Buddhists, the Rohingyas does not amount to bad karma. It is not a crime. And the public is fully behind the army and Aung San Suu Kyi because they believe that those two entities are defending the nation.

MCEVERS: If she’s not the person to solve this, what will solve this problem?

ZARNI: Well, the solution lies outside. And there has to be an international coalition outside the Security Council that is prepared to make a concerted effort to bear serious pressure on both Aung San Suu Kyi and the military.

MCEVERS: Do you think Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s visit will provide that outside pressure that you think is needed for things to change?

ZARNI: You know, yes or no. Yes, it would put the Burmese military on notice, but no because they have not put their foot down saying that this is international crime and you stop this immediately, or there will be consequences. So that message is not being delivered by Tillerson.

MCEVERS: Maung Zarni specializes in genocide in Buddhist countries. He joined us from the U.K. on Skype. Thank you so much.

ZARNI: Thank you.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2017/11/15/564443814/in-myanmar-the-persecution-of-the-muslim-minority-the-rohingya-continues

By Dr Elias Akleh

During its zenith the Ottoman Empire extended over parts of three continents; Europe, Asia and Africa. Its rule had also spread over the Arab World in the Middle Eastern region for long four centuries. After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire the Western colonial powers (the Illuminati, the Hidden Hand, the Khazars, the Rothschilds, the Zionists or whatever you want to call them) had planned to keep the Arab World in the vital geostrategic Middle Eastern region divided, weak, plagued with perpetual wars so that no other empire could be formed to prevent them from robbing the natural resources of the area.

This plan started with the 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement, and continued on with 1917 Balfour declaration establishing the Israeli terrorist state and its wars against Arab states, the American orchestrated eight years (1980-1988) Iraq/Iran war, President Bush’s (father) 1990/1991 Gulf War,   President Bush’s (son) 2003 war against “Global Terror” destroying Iraq, the neocons’ “Project for Greater Middle East” changed later to the “New Middle East”, the so-called Arab Spring and the destruction of Libya, and finally the six years terrorist wars against Syria and the devastating three years Saudi war against Yemen.

These planned wars kept the Arab World politically divided, conflicted, economically and culturally under-developed, and war-torn with millions of its Arab inhabitants killed, maimed and displaced.

Every action creates a reaction. Every oppression is faced with resistance. As the logical result of all these destructive and devastating wars a new generation of stronger, more adaptable, more creative, and yes more militaristic resistance group was destined to emerge and grow as struggle for survival. A phoenix rising from the ashes; in Lebanon Hezbollah was born and grew stronger. Its fighters caused the American marines to withdrew from Lebanon after bombing the American embassy in 1983. This was followed in 1985 by the ousting of the Israeli occupational forces from southern Lebanon. In 2006 Hezbollah was able to inflect heavy casualties on the so-called undefeatable Israeli forces and to stop them from advancing into southern Lebanon one more time. Getting stronger and more battle experienced Hezbollah joined the Syrian forces to defeat the American/Israeli/Turkish/Saudi supported and armed terrorist groups; such as ISIS and al-Nusra, who waged a six-years terrorist war against Syria.

In occupied Palestine national resistance grew against the Israeli occupation. Two national Intifadha movements erupted against Israeli oppression. Different militarily, though weak, resistance factions were developed. Hamas was the strongest faction and won the Palestinian election in 2006. Yet this did not suit Israel and its western supporters, so they applied pressure on the Palestinian Authority to oppose a Hamas government, which eventually led to the separation of the Gaza Strip from the West Bank and the establishment of two separate Palestinian governments. Israel took advantage of the situation, imposed a military siege against Gaza Strip and led military attacks against the Strip. Unfortunately, some Arab governments; such as Jordan and Egypt, joined Israel in its siege against Gaza.

Hezbollah and Hamas were supported by Iran, who had its own share of colonialism and wars. Britain occupied Iran and exploited its oil since WWII. Mohammad Mosaddegh was appointed as the Prime Minister in 1951. He nationalized the petroleum industry and the oil reserves, an act that angered the West. In 1953 an American led coup deposed of Mosaddegh and appointed a stooge; Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, as the Shah of Iran. With the help of his ruthless secret police; the SAVAK, the Shah ruled Iran suppressively for the benefit of British and American oil companies.

The February 1979 Islamic Revolution deposed of the Shah and established an Islamic Republic. The US responded by inciting and financing popular uprisings such as the Kurdish rebellion, and uprisings in Sistan and Baluchestan. When these uprisings failed the CIA Iraqi operative; Saddam Hussein, was pushed into war against Iran in 1980 that lasted eight years.

The Iranians learnt that the best way to protect themselves and their country is through the build up of their own military industry and through supporting Arab resistance groups in the neighboring Middle Eastern region.

After the 2006 Israeli defeat and failure to destroy Hezbollah in the north, its 2008-09 and 2014 military failures to destroy Hamas in the south, the failure of the terrorist wars against Syria and Iraq, and the failure of the on-going war against Yemen, it became evident that a growing militarily strong Iran, with its influence in these Arab countries is the major stumbling block for Western colonialism and for the continuation of the Greater Israel Project.

Iran is now the main target for US/Israel/NATO/Gulf states, who are stepping up pressure to isolate Iran internationally and to cut its Middle Eastern wings.

For years the well-known nuclear Israel kept on claiming that Iran is one year away from developing nuclear bomb.

While allowing itself to develop tactical nuclear bombs the Trump administration is criticizing the 2013 P5+1 Iranian nuclear deal (JPOA – Joint Plan of Action) threatening not to re-certify the agreement.

The US, Britain and France had considered Hamas a terrorist group, and recently had added Hezbollah to the terrorist list. They are inciting hatred and enmity particularly in the oil and gas rich Gulf States; Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Kuwait, against Iran.

This hatred and enmity are clearly manifested in the frustrated Saudi Kingdom due to the failure of its costly military foreign policies meddling in the region. The Kingdom had paid Israel for its 2006 offensive in southern Lebanon to get rid of Hezbollah but this Israeli offensive had failed. In his November 11th speech, Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah, exposed the fact that the Kingdom, then, had paid billions of dollars to Israel to attack Hezbollah.

The Kingdom had also failed to get rid of Syrian al-Assad, who rejected the Saudi pipe line and Qatari gas line through his country to Europe. It had also eventually failed to bully Qatar and had gained its enmity instead. It had also failed to subdue the Bahraini popular revolution. Finally, the Kingdom is so frustrated due to the still on-going 3 years Operation Decisive Storm against Yemen, and had become very concerned after Yemeni forces had successfully launched missiles into the Saudi capital.

With the encouragement of President Trump himself, and conspiring with the Zionist  Jared Kushner, an in-experienced, power hungry, and un-realistically dreaming Saudi prince; Mohammad bin Salman, had conducted a coup against all the other royal princes violating all the Saudi family ruling traditions. Somehow, King Salman was convinced to remove Crown Prince Muhammad bin Nayef, the heir to the kingdom, from all his positions, and to appoint his own son Mohammad as the Crown Prince, violating all the Family’s ruling tradition that has been adopted since the establishment of the kingdom.

A petition signed by 21 princes and ministers was sent to the king objecting to the crowning of prince Mohammad and urging for the return of the status quo. Corrupt himself, Prince Mohammad’s reaction was to launch what he claimed to be an anti-corrupt campaign, imprisoning at least eleven princes and tens of ministers and businessmen, and confiscated what is estimated to be $800 billion in assets.

Thus, Mohammad now has purged the domestic front from any opposition and gained total control over the major sectors of the state; military, security, media, economy and religion. This was accomplished with the employment and help of the American Black Waters mercenaries.

Mohammad bin Salman had also called in the Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri, arrested him as soon as he landed in Riyadh, and forced him to broadcast his resignation accusing Iran of interfering in Lebanese and regional affairs, and of Hezbollah of occupying Lebanon and having plans to assassinate him. Mohammad bin Salman’s goal was to spread chaos among Lebanese factions especially after he accused Iran and Hezbollah of supplying Yemen with missiles that hit Riyadh, which he considered an act of war vowing to respond militarily to free Lebanon from the Hezbollah’s grip.

Beating the drums of what could be WWIII in the region, this naïve, inexperienced, dreaming-to-become a great emperor Mohammad bin Salman is not aware that he, like other leaders in the region, is played by the American administration. He seems to have the illusion that the presence of the American military bases and fleets in the Persian Gulf would protect him from any attack. Besides his war on Yemen he believes that he could pay some Arab leaders to form a military coalition to first subdue Qatar, then attack Iran, and at the same time pay Israel, again, to fight Hezbollah.

What this prince, Mohammad bin Salman, has overlooked is the tribal loyalty many Saudi citizens have for the princes he imprisoned. A counter-coup and an assassination could be in his near future as a retribution to the sins he committed against the tribal honor and the Saudi family tradition.

Source: http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/11/12/new-war-drums-out-of-saudi-arabia/

By Jonathan Cook

Nazareth: The scandal surrounding Priti Patel, who was forced to resign as Britain’s international aid minister last week after secret meetings with Israeli officials during a “family holiday”, offers a small, opaque window on the UK’s powerful Israel lobby.

Patel’s off-the-books meetings with 12 Israelis, including prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, were organised by a British lobbyist in violation of government rules requiring careful documentation of official meetings. That is to prevent conflicts of interest and illicit lobbying by foreign powers.

Government protocol was flouted again when Patel headed to the Golan Heights, occupied Syrian territory, escorted by the Israeli army. There she was shown an Israeli military field hospital that patches up Syrians, including Al Qaeda-affiliated fighters, wounded in Syria’s civil war.

Afterwards, Patel pressed for the Israeli army, one of the most powerful in the world, to receive a chunk of Britain’s overseas aid. Meanwhile, she has sought to cut aid to the Palestinians, including to vital projects in Gaza. A clue as to how she reached such absurd “humanitarian” priorities is provided in the figure of Stuart Polak, mentor on her Israel “holiday”.

The honorary president of Conservative Friends of Israel, Lord Polak has recruited four-fifths of Conservative MPs, and almost every government minister, to a group whose explicit goal is to advance Israeli interests in Britain. The prime minister, Theresa May, is regarded as one of Israel’s most fervent supporters in Europe.

That should be a cause for public indignation – no other foreign state enjoys such unabashed, high-level political support.

Another window on Israel’s meddling opened briefly last week. The BBC’s political editor, Laura Kuenssberg, took to Twitter to relay a damning comment from an unnamed “senior” member of Patel’s party. In a clear reference to Israel, the source observed: “The entire apparatus has turned a blind eye to a corrupt relationship that allows a country to buy access”.

A short time later, presumably under pressure, Kuenssberg deleted the tweet. The BBC has not reported the comment elsewhere and the senior Conservative has not dared go public. Such, it seems, is the intimidating and corrupting influence of the lobby.

More than a decade ago, two leading American academics wrote a study of the Israel lobby’s role in the United States, Israel’s chief patron for half a century. It was a sign of the lobby’s influence that John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt could not find a publisher at home. They had to turn to a British journal instead.

The Israel lobby’s strength in western capitals has depended precisely on its ability to remain out of view. Simply to talk about the lobby risks being accused of perpetuating anti-Semitic tropes of Jewish cabals.

But Mearsheimer and Walt described a type of pressure group familiar in the US – and increasingly in European capitals. Everyone from Cuba to health insurers and arms manufacturers operate aggressive lobbyists in Washington to secure their interests.

What is special about the Israel lobby in the US – an amalgam of hawkish Jewish leadership organisations and messianic Christian evangelicals – is the fear it exploits to silence critics. No one wants to be labelled an anti-Semite.

Rarely identified or held to account, the lobby has entrenched its power.

That is what Britain’s heir to the throne, Prince Charles, was talking about three decades ago – even if he misidentified it as a “Jewish” rather Israel lobby – in a forgotten letter found in the public archives and publicised at the weekend.

“Surely some US president has to have the courage to stand up and take on the Jewish lobby in the US? I must be naive, I suppose!” he wrote to a family friend in 1986.

Today, as recent events illustrate, the lobby is struggling to stay in the shadows. Social media and Palestinians with camera phones have exposed a global audience to systematic abuses by the Israeli army the western media largely ignored. For the first time, Israel supporters sound evasive and dissembling.

Meanwhile, Netanyahu’s strident efforts in the US Congress through 2014 and 2015 to prevent a nuclear accord with Iran dragged the lobby even farther into the light.

The Israel lobby’s dirty tricks in the UK were exposed earlier this year too. An Al Jazeera TV documentary showed Conservative party officials colluding with the Israeli embassy to “take down” Alan Duncan, a foreign office minister who supports the Palestinian cause.

It is noteworthy that Ms Patel’s downfall came about because of social media. Israeli officials like police minister Gilad Erdan were so unused to scrutiny or accountability themselves that they happily tweeted photos with Patel. Erdan is a key player in the lobby, running a “smear unit” to target overseas critics of Israel.

We may never know why Patel so grossly flouted ministerial rules or what she quietly promised in those meetings in Israel. Colleagues have hinted that, in a pattern familiar from US politics, she hoped to win over the lobby and its wealthy donors for a future leadership bid.

There is no way to know, given the lobby’s penchant for secrecy, whether Patel simply proved less adept at treading a path marked out by former Conservative and Labour party leadership hopefuls. But it is also possible that the lobby is discovering changes to the political and cultural environment are making its work much harder.

There is growing hysteria about foreign interference in US and European politics. Is it not time for western states to show as much concern about the malign influence of Israel’s lobbyists as they do about Russian hackers?

A version of this article first appeared in the National, Abu Dhabi.

Source: http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/11/13/israel-lobby-is-slowly-being-dragged-into-the-light/

By Peter Lehr

7 Nov 2017 – Even ten years on, the first mental image that comes to mind with regard to Theravāda Buddhism is that of Myanmar’s Saffron Revolution of August-September 2007: thousands of Buddhist monks peacefully demonstrating in the streets of Yangon, Mandalay, Pakokku, Sittwe and other towns against the ruling military junta. These peaceful monks still exist, although many of them went into hiding, or fled abroad. But the Burmese monks in the headlines today are preaching violence instead of peace, and “firm action” instead of meditation.

It’s not just in Myanmar that this militant Buddhism is on the rise: it’s also surfacing in the other two leading Theravādin countries: Sri Lanka and Thailand. In all three countries, Buddhists make up the vast majority of the population: 70% in Sri Lanka, 88% in Myanmar, and 93% in Thailand. One could be excused for thinking that there is nothing to worry about: with such towering demographic majorities, Buddhists are surely to some extent safe and secure in their respective countries.

This is not how the militant monks see things. They are convinced that Buddhism is under siege, and in grave danger of being wiped out. To explain this, they point out that while Muslims or Hindu Tamils (in the case of Sri Lanka) are in the minority in these countries, they enjoy significant support from beyond their national borders.

In Sri Lanka and Myanmar, the notion that a non-Buddhist minority is the vanguard of an imminent invasion is very strong indeed. It is believed that firm action has to be taken to prevent “them” from taking over Buddhist lands and eradicating Buddhism. Basically, the militant monks see their communities as targets of a relentless “holy war”, and see it as their duty, to respond in kind with their own variant of “holy war”.

Justifying violence

The conviction that Buddhism is under threat also allows these leaders to justify the use of violence. Militant monks usually start their argumentation by pointing out that even the Buddha himself showed some understanding for the wars conducted by his benefactor King Pasenadi instead of condemning them. He did still warn him that “killing, you gain your killer, conquering, you gain the one who will conquer you” – the message being that violence begets violence. Even for the Buddha, then, nonviolence was not necessarily an absolute value – a point seized on by many of today’s militant monks. Although they readily concede that an offensive use of violence should never be allowed, they point out that peaceful and nonviolent Buddhist communities still have the right to defend themselves, especially if and when the survival of the religion as such is at stake.

This point of view is dated. As soon as Buddhist-majority states came into being, the monkhood had to find ways to justify violence, including war, especially that perpetrated by their virtuous sovereign against an opponent. Indeed it was by the monarch’s benevolence, and under the law and order he created, that the monastic order was able to survive.

An early example of such a justification comes from the Sinhalese Mahāvamsa (the Great Chronicle): After a battle against a Hindu-Tamil army, Buddhist King Dutugāmunu felt remorse for all the deaths he had caused, and asked senior monks for advice. They basically told him not to worry since he had caused the deaths of only one and a half persons – one who had just converted to Buddhism, and another who had been a Buddhist lay follower. All the rest had just been “unbelievers and men of evil life […], not more to be esteemed than beasts”.

This notable verdict implies that killing is excusable as long as the intention behind it is in the defence of the religion. Not surprisingly, this quote still is used to condone the use of violence – most recently by the Sitagu Sayadaw, an esteemed Burmese monastic leader, in order to justify the current persecution of perceived enemies of both state and religion – in this case, the Rohingya.

Sanctioning the violent actions of one’s ruler or one’s government is one thing; actively inciting lay-followers to commit such acts in defence of the religion is something completely different. Compared to “preachers of hate” from Abrahamic religions, today’s militant monks have a difficult tightrope to walk, since incitement to murder constitutes one of Buddhism’s four disrobing offences (pārājikas) – offences resulting in the automatic expulsion from the monkhood. In September for example, a Thai monk was forced to disrobe because he had publicly demanded that for each monk killed in Thailand’s deep south, a mosque should be torched.

Most militant monks are therefore very careful in avoiding open calls to violence – instead, they attend mass rallies and demonstrations to stoke anti-Muslim sentiments and to preach “passive resistance” or “pro-Buddhist affirmative action”: not buying from Muslims, not selling to Muslims, not fraternising with Muslims, not allowing one’s children to marry Muslims. They leave it to their followers, especially those organised in pro-state vigilante groups or Buddhist militias, to draw the right conclusions.

Although there is anecdotal evidence of armed monks actively taking part in violence, the majority of militant monks shy away from directly becoming involved: again, this would be a grave violation of the monastic code. Ashin Wirathu, a monk and leader of the Burmese anti-Muslim movement, describes this passive role very eloquently: “I am only warning people about Muslims. Consider it like if you had a dog, that would bark at strangers coming to your house – it is to warn you. I am like that dog. I bark.”

The rise of this strain of militant Theravāda Buddhism can be explained in ethnic, social and economic terms, but from the perspective of the militant monks themselves, it’s about religion. It’s not about the control of resources or worldly goods, but a defensive “holy war” or “Dhamma Yudhaya” in response to a perceived aggressive “jihad” against Buddhism that has been waged for centuries, from the destruction of the Buddhist library in Nalanda/Bihar at the end of the 12th century, to the destruction of the famous Bamiyan Buddhas in March 2001.

This somewhat simplistic reading of history, reminiscent of Samuel P. Huntington’s “clash of civilizations” thesis, reinforces the militant monks’ belief that now is the time not for peaceful meditation, but for firm action. The Buddha’s warning that violence begets violence seems to have fallen on deaf ears for the time being.

Source: https://www.transcend.org/tms/2017/11/militant-buddhism-is-on-the-march-in-south-east-asia-where-did-it-come-from/

By Pepe Escobar

6 Nov 2017 – The House of Saud’s King Salman devises a high-powered “anti-corruption” commission and appoints his son, Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman, a.k.a. MBS, as chairman.

Right on cue, the commission detains 11 House of Saud princes, four current ministers and dozens of former princes/cabinet secretaries – all charged with corruption. Hefty bank accounts are frozen, private jets are grounded. The high-profile accused lot is “jailed” at the Riyadh Ritz-Carlton.

War breaks out within the House of Saud, as Asia Times had anticipated back in July. Rumors have been swirling for months about a coup against MBS in the making. Instead, what just happened is yet another MBS pre-emptive coup.

A top Middle East business/investment source who has been doing deals for decades with the opaque House of Saud offers much-needed perspective: “This is more serious than it appears. The arrest of the two sons of previous King Abdullah, Princes Miteb and Turki, was a fatal mistake. This now endangers the King himself. It was only the regard for the King that protected MBS. There are many left in the army against MBS and they are enraged at the arrest of their commanders.”

To say the Saudi Arabian Army is in uproar is an understatement. “He’d have to arrest the whole army before he could feel secure.”

Prince Miteb until recently was a serious contender to the Saudi throne. But the highest profile among the detainees belongs to billionaire Prince al-Waleed Bin Talal, owner of Kingdom Holdings, major shareholder in Twitter, CitiBank, Four Seasons, Lyft and, until recently, Rupert Murdoch’s Newscorp.

Al-Waleed’s arrest ties up with a key angle; total information control. There’s no freedom of information in Saudi Arabia. MBS already controls all the internal media (as well as the appointment of governorships). But then there’s Saudi media at large. MBS aims to “hold the keys to all the large media empires and relocate them to Saudi Arabia.”

So how did we get here?

The secrets behind the purge

The story starts with secret deliberations in 2014 about a possible “removal” of then King Abdullah. But “the dissolution of the royal family would lead to the breaking apart of tribal loyalties and the country splitting into three parts. It would be more difficult to secure the oil, and the broken institutions whatever they were should be maintained to avoid chaos.”

Instead, a decision was reached to get rid of Prince Bandar bin Sultan – then actively coddling Salafi-jihadis in Syria – and replace the control of the security apparatus with Mohammed bin Nayef.

The succession of Abdullah proceeded smoothly. “Power was shared between three main clans: King Salman (and his beloved son Prince Mohammed); the son of Prince Nayef (the other Prince Mohammed), and finally the son of the dead king (Prince Miteb, commander of the National Guard). In practice, Salman let MBS run the show.

And, in practice, blunders also followed. The House of Saud lost its lethal regime-change drive in Syria and is bogged down in an unwinnable war on Yemen, which on top of it prevents MBS from exploiting the Empty Quarter – the desert straddling both nations.

The Saudi Treasury was forced to borrow on the international markets. Austerity ruled – with news of MBS buying a yacht for almost half a billion dollars while lazing about the Cote d’Azur not going down particularly well. Hardcore political repression is epitomized by the decapitation of Shi’ite leader Sheikh Al-Nimr. Not only the Shi’ites in the Eastern province are rebelling but also Sunni provinces in the west.

As the regime’s popularity radically tumbled down, MBS came up with Vision 2030. Theoretically, it was shift away from oil; selling off part of Aramco; and an attempt to bring in new industries. Cooling off dissatisfaction was covered by royal payoffs to key princes to stay loyal and retroactive payments on back wages to the unruly masses.

Yet Vision 2030 cannot possibly work when the majority of productive jobs in Saudi Arabia are held by expats. Bringing in new jobs raises the question of where are the new (skilled) workers to come from.

Throughout these developments, aversion to MBS never ceased to grow; “There are three major royal family groups aligning against the present rulers: the family of former King Abdullah, the family of former King Fahd, and the family of former Crown Prince Nayef.”

Nayef – who replaced Bandar – is close to Washington and extremely popular in Langley due to his counter-terrorism activities. His arrest earlier this year angered the CIA and quite a few factions of the House of Saud – as it was interpreted as MBS forcing his hand in the power struggle.

According to the source, “he might have gotten away with the arrest of CIA favorite Mohammed bin Nayef if he smoothed it over but MBS has now crossed the Rubicon though he is no Caesar. The CIA regards him as totally worthless.”

Some sort of stability could eventually be found in a return to the previous power sharing between the Sudairis (without MBS) and the Chamars (the tribe of deceased King Abdullah). After the death of King Salman, the source would see it as “MBS isolated from power, which would be entrusted to the other Prince Mohammed (the son of Nayef). And Prince Miteb would conserve his position.”

MBS acted exactly to prevent this outcome. The source, though, is adamant; “There will be regime change in the near future, and the only reason that it has not happened already is because the old King is liked among his family. It is possible that there may be a struggle emanating from the military as during the days of King Farouk, and we may have a ruler arise that is not friendly to the United States.”

‘Moderate’ Salafi-jihadis, anyone?

Before the purge, the House of Saud’s incessant spin centered on a $500 billion zone straddling Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt, on the Red Sea coast, a sort of Dubai replica to be theoretically completed by 2025, powered by wind and solar energy, and financed by its sovereign wealth fund and proceeds from the Aramco IPO.

In parallel, MBS pulled another rabbit from his hat swearing the future of Saudi Arabia is a matter of “simply reverting to what we followed – a moderate Islam open to the world and all religions.”

In a nutshell: a state that happens to be the private property of a royal family inimical to all principles of freedom of expression and religion, as well as the ideological matrix of all forms of Salafi-jihadism simply cannot metastasize into a “moderate” state just because MBS says so.

Meanwhile, a pile-up of purges, coups and countercoups shall be the norm.

Source: https://www.transcend.org/tms/2017/11/the-inside-story-of-the-saudi-night-of-long-knives/

By Jake Johnson

“The elite ranks of our billionaire class continue to pull apart from the rest of us,” a new Institute for Policy Studies analysis finds.

8 Nov 2017 – In the United States, the 400 richest individuals now own more wealth than the bottom 64 percent of the population and the three richest own more wealth than the bottom 50 percent, while pervasive poverty means one in five households have zero or negative net worth.

“All combined, households in the bottom one percent have a combined negative net worth of $196 billion.”
— Billionaire Bonanza

Those are just several of the striking findings of Billionaire Bonanza 2017, a new report (pdf) published Wednesday by the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) that explores in detail the speed with which the U.S. is becoming “a hereditary aristocracy of wealth and power.”

“Over recent decades, an incredibly disproportionate share of America’s income and wealth gains has flowed to the top of our economic spectrum. At the tip of that top sit the nation’s richest 400 individuals, a group that Forbes magazine has been tracking annually since 1982,” write IPS’s Chuck Collins and Josh Hoxie, the report’s authors. “Americans at the other end of our economic spectrum, meanwhile, watch their wages stagnate and savings dwindle.”

Collins and Hoxie are quick to note that the vast gulf that currently exists between the rich and everyone else is not the product of some inexplicable “natural phenomenon.” It is, rather, the result of “unfair economic policies that benefit those at the top at the expense of those at  the bottom.”

Based on data recently made public by the Forbes 400 list and the Federal Reserve’s annual “Survey of Consumer Finances,” Billionaire Bonanza examines in detail the principal beneficiaries of America’s “deeply unbalanced economy”: the mega-rich.

“The wealthiest 25 individuals in the United States today own $1 trillion in combined assets,” the report notes. “These 25, a group equivalent to the active roster of a major league baseball team, hold more wealth than the bottom 56 percent of the U.S. population combined, 178 million people.”

The top 25 list features billionaires who have attained their vast riches through a variety of means, from inheritance to investing to founding a corporate giant like Amazon or Google. What unites these enormously wealthy individuals—aside from the fact that they are all white—is that they just keep getting richer, decade after decade.

Average Americans, by contrast, have not fared nearly as well: a significant percentage of the U.S. households “have no savings at all or owe more than they own,” making them residents of what Collins and Hoxie term “Underwater Nation.”

“Excluding the value of the family car, 19 percent of U.S. households have zero or negative net worth,” the report notes. “Looking at this trend through the lens of race reveals that 30 percent of black households and 27 percent of Latino households have zero or negative wealth.”

In order to get a broader sense of the size of the chasm between rich and poor in the U.S., Collins and Hoxie place the net worth of the top one percent and the bottom one percent side by side.

“The wealthiest 25 individuals in the United States today hold more wealth than the bottom 56 percent of the U.S. population combined, 178 million people.”

“All combined, households in the bottom one percent have a combined negative net worth of $196 billion,” the report finds. “For comparison, the top one percent, a category holding the exact same number of people, have positive $33.4 trillion in combined net worth.”

Even mainstream institutions like the International Monetary Fund have acknowledged that such vast disparities of wealth and income are not sustainable, politically or economically. But as Billionaire Bonanza notes, the Trump administration—with the help of the GOP-controlled Congress—appears bent on making these disparities worse by slashing taxes for the wealthy while gutting programs that primarily benefit low-income and middle class Americans.

So the first priority, Collins and Hoxie note, is to “reject tax and other federal policies that will add oil to the inequality fire.”

In terms of going on the offensive once the “do no harm” principle is observed, the report makes several suggestions, including:

•  Enacting higher marginal tax rates on individuals earning above $250,000 and $1 million;

• “Addressing the problem of hidden wealth,” which often leads to an underestimation of the level of wealth inequality;

• Instituting a tax on Wall Street financial transactions, which could bring in an estimated $350 billion in federal revenue over a decade;

• Eliminate the carried interest loophole, which allows hedge fund managers to “reclassify wage income as capital income” and pay less in taxes as a result; and

• Bolstering, rather than eliminating, the estate tax, which only affects a tiny number families.

As “the elite ranks of our billionaire class continue to pull apart from the rest of us,” the report notes, many Americans—including students saddled with loan debt, workers suffering from stagnant wages, and families who have seen “their wealth and savings evaporate”—are revolting against the system that allowed the richest to accumulate such wealth at the expense of so many.

“A century ago, a similar anti-inequality upsurge took on America’s vastly unequal distribution of income and wealth and, over the course of little more than a generation, fashioned a much more equal America,” Collins and Hoxie conclude. “We can do the same.”

Source: https://www.transcend.org/tms/2017/11/three-richest-americans-now-own-more-wealth-than-bottom-half-of-us-combined-report/

By Robert Fisk

When Saad Hariri’s jet touched down at Riyadh on the evening of 3 November, the first thing he saw was a group of Saudi policemen surrounding the plane. When they came aboard, they confiscated his mobile phone and those of his bodyguards. Thus was Lebanon’s prime minister silenced.

It was a dramatic moment in tune with the soap-box drama played out across Saudi Arabia this past week: the house arrest of 11 princes – including the immensely wealthy Alwaleed bin Talal – and four ministers and scores of other former government lackeys, not to mention the freezing of up to 1,700 bank accounts. Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman’s “Night of the Long Knives” did indeed begin at night, only hours after Hariri’s arrival in Riyadh. So what on earth is the crown prince up to?

Put bluntly, he is clawing down all his rivals and – so the Lebanese fear – trying to destroy the government in Beirut, force the Shia Hezbollah out of the cabinet and restart a civil war in Lebanon. It won’t work, for the Lebanese – while not as rich – are a lot smarter than the Saudis. Every political group in the country, including Hezbollah, are demanding one thing only: Hariri must come back. As for Saudi Arabia, those who said that the Arab revolution will one day reach Riyadh – not with a minority Shia rising, but with a war inside the Sunni Wahhabi royal family – are watching the events of the past week with both shock and awe.

But back to Hariri. On Friday 3 November, he was in a cabinet meeting in Beirut. Then he received a call, asking him to see King Salman of Saudi Arabia. Hariri, who like his assassinated father Rafiq, holds Saudi as well as Lebanese citizenship, set off at once. You do not turn down a king, even if you saw him a few days’ earlier, as Hariri had. And especially when the kingdom owes Hariri’s “Oger” company as much as $9bn, for such is the commonly rumoured state of affairs in what we now call “cash-strapped Saudi Arabia”.

But more extraordinary matters were to come. Out of the blue and to the total shock of Lebanese ministers, Hariri, reading from a written text, announced on Saturday on the Arabia television channel – readers can guess which Gulf kingdom owns it – that he was resigning as prime minister of Lebanon. There were threats against his life, he said – though this was news to the security services in Beirut – and Hezbollah should be disarmed and wherever Iran interfered in the Middle East, there was chaos. Quite apart from the fact that Hezbollah cannot be disarmed without another civil war – is the Lebanese army supposed to attack them when Shia are the largest minority in the country (many of them in the army)? These were not words that Hariri had ever used before. They were not, in other words, written by him. As one who knows him well said this week, “this was not him speaking”. In other words, the Saudis had ordered the prime minister of Lebanon to resign and to read his own departure out loud from Riyadh.

I should add, of course, that Hariri’s wife and family are in Riyadh, so even if he did return to Beirut, there would be hostages left behind. Thus after a week of this outrageous political farce, there is even talk in Beirut of asking Saad Hariri’s elder brother Bahaa to take his seat in the cabinet. But what of Saad himself? Callers have reached him at his Riyadh home, but he speaks only a few words. “He says ‘I will come back’ or ‘I’m fine’, that’s all, only those words, which is very unlike him,” says one who must know. And what if Hariri did come back? Would he claim that his resignation had been forced upon him? Dare the Saudis risk this?

He certainly did not anticipate what happened to him. Indeed, Hariri had scheduled meetings in Beirut on the following Monday – with the IMF, the World Bank and a series of discussions on water quality improvement; not exactly the action of a man who planned to resign his premiership. However, the words he read out – scripted for him – are entirely in line with the speeches of Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman and with the insane President of the United States who speaks of Iran with the same anger, as does the American Defence Secretary.

Of course, the real story is just what is going on in Saudi Arabia itself, for the crown prince has broken forever the great compromise that exists in the kingdom: between the royal family and the clergy, and between the tribes. This was always the bedrock upon which the country stood or fell. And Mohamed bin Salman has now broken this apart. He is liquidating his enemies – the arrests, needless to say, are supposedly part of an “anti-corruption drive”, a device which Arab dictators have always used when destroying their political opponents.

There will be no complaints from Washington or London, whose desire to share in the divvying up of Saudi Aramco (another of the crown prince’s projects) will smother any thoughts of protest or warning. And given the smarmy reporting of the Crown Prince’s recent speeches in the New York Times, I have my suspicions that even this elderly journalistic organ will be comparatively unworried by the Saudi coup d’etat. For that is what it is. He unseated the interior minister earlier this year and now Mohamed bin Salman is getting rid of his opponents’ financial power.

But ruthless men can also be humble. Hariri was allowed to see the King – the original reason for which he believed he was travelling to Riyadh – and even paid a visit to the crown prince of the United Arab Emirates this week, an ally-nation of the Saudis who would prevent him jumping on a flight to Beirut. But why on earth would Hariri want to go to the Emirates? To prove that he was still free to travel when he cannot even return to the country which he is supposed to be ruling?

Lebanon is always going through the greatest crisis since its last greatest crisis. But this time, it’s for real.

Source: http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/lebanon-prime-minister-saad-hariri-resignation-not-all-seems-quits-resigns-surprise-saudi-arabia-a8045636.html

SAJFP MEDIA STATEMENT

We as Jewish South Africans reject the ANC’s International Relations Sub Committee meeting with Israeli politician Tzachi Hanegbi.

Hanegbi has a history of violence. As president of his student union in 1980, he received a six-month suspended sentence for leading an attack on Palestinian students, he has also served in the Israeli Defense Force (that we need not remind you is guilty of human rights abuses and crimes against the Palestinians). In addition, in July this year, through a despicable Facebook post, Hanegbi threatened Palestinians with a further round of ethnic cleansing.

Furthermore, Hanegbi was part of a group of Israeli politicians who in January this year backed a racist anti-African law. Hanegbi voted in favor of the “Prevention of Infiltration Law and Ensuring the Exit of Infiltrators from Israel (Legislative Amendments and Temporary Provisions) (Amendment), 5767 – 2016” which proposed the seizing of wages from non-Jewish African refugees to coerce them to self-deport. Israeli racism against Africans is shared and even encouraged by leading Israeli politicians including the likes of Hanegbi as well as Israeli Prime Minster, Benjamin Netanyahu, who has said that Africans in Israel “threaten the social fabric of society.” Israel’s Minister of Interior, Eli Yishai, has said that African immigrants “think the country doesn’t belong to us, the white man.” And the Israeli Minister of Culture and Sport, Miri Regev, has publicly compared Africans to “a cancer”. It was also revealed in 2013 that Israel was forcing African women to take birth control injections without their consent.

We appreciate that the Hanegbi/ANC meeting was not an official government to government meeting, however, Israel has already issued a statement misconstruing the facts – suggesting that this was an inter-ministerial meeting. Hanegbi himself has tweeted that he was “in the first ministerial meetings between @Israel and @GovernmentZA in 5 years”. The ANC has not rejected this Israeli PR strongly or forcefully enough. And, the larger question remains, why would the ANC have held such a meeting in the first place?  How would the ANC view a meeting during the 1970s of, for example, an ally, Julius Nyerere’s Tanzania African National Union (TANU), meeting with a Minister from Apartheid South Africa? The ANC and the larger liberation movement would rightfully have condemned such moves and likewise Palestinians – as well as human rights supporting Jewish South Africans and our progressive Jewish Israelis allies also condemn this.

SAJFP reaffirms our support for the ANC National Policy Conference’s recommendation to downgrade the South African Embassy in Tel Aviv. We hope that the ANC’s International Relations Sub-Committee is not attempting to derail this recommendation from its branches. The downgrade is a concrete step beyond rhetoric. Israel must be held accountable for its crimes against the Palestinian people and a clear message must be sent that there are no normal relations with an abnormal regime.

We would like to again draw attention to the letter that a group of progressive Jewish Israelis sent to the ANC also supporting the call for a downgrade of relations and support of the BDS boycott of Israel. In their letter to the ANC, our Israeli friends explained that:

“After many years of trying to change our society from within, we have come to the conclusion that an international campaign, such as the boycott against apartheid South Africa, is necessary to change the situation here. We believe that the time has come for further measures. Governments including the South African government should be downgrading diplomatic relations and their embassies in Israel, to send a clear message to Israel that its violations of international law are unacceptable. Ultimately we call on the ANC to strengthen its support for the BDS movement and Palestinian struggle.”

We humbly submit that the ANC should be taking its direction from the oppressed, from the Palestinians, who have called for the downgrade, as well as progressive Israelis who are working towards a just peace in Israel-Palestine and who have also called for the downgrade of the Embassy. The ANC should not be taking its direction from the oppressor – from the Israeli government!

For more information please contact:
Allan Horwitz:  0825128188

*South African Jews for a Free Palestine (SAJFP) is an organisation of South African Jews wishing to see a just resolution to the conflict in Historic Palestine. We strongly believe in the Jewish concept of Tikkun Olam, “Repairing the World” which embodies social action and the pursuit of social justice. Historically Jews have been involved struggles to achieve social justice and we are proud to continue this tradition. Furthermore, as Jews, we feel obliged to speak out against injustice purportedly carried out in our name.

08 November 2017

By Jordan Shilton

Hot on the heels of purging his main rivals for the Saudi throne, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has dramatically ratcheted up tensions in the Middle East, accusing Iran of an “act of war.” This makes clear that the consolidation of power in the hands of the most hardline, anti-Iranian faction of the Saudi royal family threatens to trigger a catastrophic regional conflict across the war-ravaged Middle East.

Bin Salman’s allegation was made in the wake of the firing of a missile from Yemen into Saudi Arabia, which was intercepted and destroyed by the Saudi Air Force. Riyadh has been waging a bloody war since 2015 against the Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Bin Salman seized on the incident to provocatively threaten a military conflict with Tehran. “The involvement of Iran in supplying missiles to the Houthis is a direct military aggression by the Iranian regime,” he said Tuesday, “and may be considered an act of war against the Kingdom.”

Fanning the flames of conflict between the two regional competitors and strengthening bin Salman’s hand in his anti-Iran policy, US President Donald Trump denounced Iran Monday, blaming it, without any evidence, for being behind the missile launch. The head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards responded to Trump’s incendiary allegation by denying Iranian responsibility.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif responded angrily via Twitter, criticising Riyadh for carrying out “wars of aggression, regional bullying, destabilising behaviour and risky provocations.” Yet, he added, Saudi Arabia “blames Iran for the consequences.”

Bin Salman’s war threats followed the dramatic arrest of 11 princes and 38 government ministers and former ministers last weekend. The crackdown, carried out by bin Salman in conjunction with his father, the aging and ailing King Salman, exposed the deepening crisis confronting the regime in Riyadh and the extremely unstable situation throughout the Middle East.

The 32-year-old bin Salman was named as crown prince in June by his father after the arrest of former Crown Prince Mohammed bin Naif. Bin Salman was appointed Saturday by King Salman to head up an anti-corruption body, and a few hours later he launched the latest wave of detentions under the self-serving pretext of clamping down on corruption.

The transparent aim was to strengthen Salman’s branch of the royal family and ensure a smooth succession to bin Salman when the 81-year-old king abdicates or dies. Among the most high profile figures arrested were Prince Miteb bin Abdullah, the son of the former King Abdullah and head of the National Guard, and Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, a billionaire with substantial investments in numerous European and US companies.

The crown prince’s declared determination to confront growing Iranian influence throughout the region is exacerbating the already tense conflicts that have been enflamed over the course of more than a quarter century of uninterrupted wars waged by US imperialism. The first Gulf War of 1991, the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the bombardment of Libya in 2011 and the ongoing war in Syria and Iraq have claimed the lives of millions, forced millions more from their homes and upended the regional balance of forces.

Everything suggests that Saudi Arabia and its US backer are taking coordinated steps to challenge Iran more forcefully. The entire US ruling elite is deeply troubled by Iran’s growing influence in the Middle East and the fact that, notwithstanding the expenditure of vast amounts of blood and treasure, Washington has proven incapable of bringing the world’s most important oil-exporting region under its control. Instead, the US is losing ground to Russia and increasingly China, which is emerging as an economic player.

The same day as bin Salman ordered the arrest of his rivals, Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri announced his surprise resignation while in the Saudi capital. Hariri, a Sunni leader who ruled in cooperation with the Shiite and Iranian-aligned Hezbollah, appears to have been forced out by Riyadh to create the conditions for a more direct confrontation with Hezbollah. In neighbouring Israel, which is preparing for war with Hezbollah, the government of Binyamin Netanyahu has encouraged the Saudis in their hardline approach to Iran. Tel Aviv has also stepped up its air strikes in the Syrian conflict, aiming to contain Iranian influence and stop weapons shipments to Hezbollah.

Prince Salman’s purge was explicitly endorsed by Trump, who stated during his ongoing Asia trip that it was a good thing for the crown prince to take action against corruption and that he has “great confidence” in him.

Trump laid the groundwork for the development of an anti-Iranian Sunni alliance in the Middle East during a trip to Riyadh in May. In the course of a provocative speech, he lambasted Tehran as the region’s main sponsor of terrorism. Last month, Trump refused to certify Iran’s compliance with the 2015 nuclear accord negotiated under the Obama administration, setting the stage for a further ratcheting up of tensions with Tehran and a direct military conflict involving the United States.

Predictably, the US media has generally responded positively to bin Salman’s crackdown on his domestic opponents. The only expressions of concern came from those worried that bin Salman’s aggressive clampdown could discredit and weaken the Saudi monarchy. Bruce Riedel, a 30-year CIA veteran and director of the Brookings Intelligence Project, told al-Jazeera, “There will be much discontent behind the scenes in the family, and the Kingdom is headed for instability.”

Riyadh, which has served as a key prop of Washington in the Middle East since 1945, is growing increasingly concerned about the undermining of its geopolitical position. Washington’s failure to launch a direct intervention to topple the Assad regime, its decision to conclude the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran and its refusal to grant its unreserved support to Riyadh’s economic and diplomatic blockade of Qatar earlier this year have intensified the Saudi ruling establishment’s crisis.

The Saudi ruling elite is responding to the thwarting of its ambitions to become the regional hegemon by lashing out ever more recklessly and aggressively. The bloody war in Yemen conducted by Riyadh since 2015 against the Houthi rebels, has killed tens of thousands of civilians and produced a devastating humanitarian disaster. The Saudis have failed to achieve their strategic ambitions and have instead been increasingly isolated, with only limited support coming from the Gulf states for the conflict.

The blockade against Qatar, which was motivated by the Saudis’ frustration at Doha’s burgeoning ties with Tehran, especially in the energy sector, has also failed to produce the desired outcome, with only the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt joining the Saudi offensive. Kuwait and Oman have remained neutral, effectively crippling the Saudi-led Gulf Cooperation Council.

The strengthening of Assad in Damascus, with the aid of Russia and Iran, has enabled Tehran to plan the establishment of a land corridor running through Syria to Lebanon and the Mediterranean coast, which would substantially enhance Iranian influence across the entire region at the expense of Riyadh, Tel Aviv and Washington.

Saudi Arabia’s domestic economic and social crisis is yet another factor contributing to the explosive situation. The royal family sits atop a social powder keg, with its vast wealth and that of the business elite offering a glaring contrast to the poverty experienced by wide sections of the kingdom’s population. These social tensions have worsened due to the sharp decline in oil prices since 2014, which has roiled the Saudi economy, compelled the adoption of austerity measures and increased dissatisfaction with the fabulous levels of wealth enjoyed by the country’s rulers. Added to this is Saudi Arabia’s overwhelmingly young population, two-thirds of which is under the age of 30.

It is clear to see why the House of Saud is deeply concerned about maintaining its brutal dictatorial rule. Ever since the Egyptian and Tunisian revolutions of 2011, the greatest fear in Saudi ruling circles has been the emergence of a popular movement in opposition to the existing set-up, something which it has sought to prevent by means of ruthless repression.

The rampant levels of social inequality and increased discrediting of the ruling elite will only encourage the Saudi rulers to act with even greater aggression throughout the region. Riyadh’s twin aims are to divert social tensions outwards against external enemies, and to strengthen the unstable monarchical regime.

Originally published in WSWS.org

Source: http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/11/08/saudi-crown-prince-charges-iran-with-act-of-war/