How the War on Terror was lost: Setting the stage (I)

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Monday March 29, 2010 · 11:35 PM PDT

2010/03/29 · 23:35

The War on Terror edged toward defeat the day Prince Bandar bin Sultan of Saudi Arabia left the Prairie Chapel Ranch in Crawford, Texas with a smile on his face. Attention was reverted from Saudi inspired terrorists, creatures of the cold war, back to Saudi enemies in Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Palestine.

In hindsight the group of ideologues that had agglomerated around President Bush were ineffectual and hardly influential. Further, Walt and Mearsheimer's unlikely Israel Lobby was all bark (no bite).

The only game in town was strategic, corporative, and cooperative interaction within the context of American and Saudi interests. This relationship emerged in full ernest in the 1970s, it nourished international Saudist terrorists and saw the transformation of groups like Hizbollah, Hamas, and the nascent Sadrists in Iraq into grassroots popular anti-Saudist movements attracting the remnants of the Arab leftist intelligentsia.

simone daud

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Friday February 26, 2010 · 6:07 AM PST

2010/02/26 · 06:07

The Palestinians and Israelis are yet to engage in peace discussions.

On the Israeli side all negotiations have effectively been about finding a compromise between the Israeli right and the Israeli left over the extent of the sovereignty to be conceded to the various Palestinian refugee camps, villages, and cities controlled by the Israeli Army.

The US has traditionally accepted that the peace process is exclusively an Israeli issue, something to be negotiated between the right and left of Israel. In this view, Palestinians are peripheral in these negotiations and should at the very least accept in advance the Israeli left's proposals uncompromized by the views of the Israeli right.

Daily Kos is a place where a genuine Palestinian and Israeli conversation is emerging, shielded by a progressive environment. To Palestinians and their friends Daily Kos is emerging as a place to present a Palestinian view to a wide audience, to engage in conversation with progressive friends of Israel, and to hope that some of our ideas, cries, and wailings will reach people closer than us to the Obama administration.

This, however, motivates a nascent and ongoing campaign of vilification against the forum and its participants.

simone daud

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Friday February 12, 2010 · 6:09 AM PST

2010/02/12 · 06:09

The Israeli movie Ajami was recently nominated for Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. This is not the first Israeli movie to be nominated for an Oscar. It is, however, a movie centred around the Ajami neighborhood of Jaffa Tel-Aviv.

There are a number of interesting reviews of the movie. However, I thought that I'd jot down some notes about the movie, which is about my Israeli community. These are my people. The language in the movie is my own distinctive Palestinian dialect. Indeed, some of the actors in the movie are family members and the director Scandar Copti is related to me on my mothers side.

There are no spoilers here but simply some brief descriptions of the settings and context of the story. Hopefully this will help a few readers better appreciate Ajami.

simone daud

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Tuesday December 22, 2009 · 12:54 AM PST

2009/12/22 · 00:54

kul `am wa antum bikhair

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Seasons greetings from me and the miniscule communities of Palestinian and Arab Christians, especially the Arab Christian community here on dailykos.

Some of us are from Bethlehem. Others are from Jaffa, some from Lebanon and some from Iraq. I am from the Galilee, my clan is from the villages that surround Nazareth. I am about to return to celebrate with my family in the ancient Churches.

We are all leftist, we are all secular. I am an atheist with a particularly progressive outlook.

Yet this Christmas matters to me and it matters to us.

simone daud

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Wednesday November 25, 2009 · 7:50 AM PST

2009/11/25 · 07:50

and wise men begin their journey.

Please excuse the religious metaphor. Being ethnically a Christian Palestinian, a child of a community whose members have suffered so much from the expansion of the settlement regime around Bethlehem and Jerusalem, I feel drawn to these words.

Indeed, claiming exclusive ownership of this story, our story because after generations of occupation we own nothing else. Our remaining dignity is the ancient narratives that together with our Muslim kin folk, our brothers and sisters, our lovers and family, whom we protect and who protect us; are like deep roots of a smashed olive tree in occupied Palestine.

The planets seem to have aligned over Palestine and the great northern star seems ready to shine. Marwan Barghouti and Ahmad Sa'adat appear to be ready to leave prison and assume leadership, the occupation is set to declare a freeze of settlement construction and hopefully an end to the thuggery of land theft and indignity, and the dogs of war are on a short leash with generals and officers facing war crimes allegations.

Much of this to my optimistic disposition seems to be the response to the Palestinian president's threat to resign. He and his advisers have been caught unaware. Strangely this is the main source of my optimism.

simone daud

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Wednesday October 21, 2009 · 9:28 PM PDT

2009/10/21 · 21:28

The Israeli press is reporting that around a fortnight ago Iran and Israel held direct talks in Cairo. They discussed the idea of a nuclear free Middle East.

Israel indicated that in principle, once comprehensive peace is established, it would be ready to discuss proposals for a nuclear free Middle East. Iran assured Israel that it does not seek to endanger Israel.

This seems to be the first time that the State of Israel and the Islamic Republic of Iran have held direct talks. The reports come hot on the heel of other reports regarding Iran's willingness to sign a draft agreement proposed by the IAEA, which affords international recognition of Iran's rights to enrich uranium under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, and at the same time eases concerns about Iran's potential ability to produce a nuclear bomb.

This is a short diary covering this breaking story.

simone daud

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Tuesday September 29, 2009 · 12:32 AM PDT

2009/09/29 · 00:32

Al-Aqsa sanctuary is a living Muslim temple in Jerusalem. It is the center of Palestinian spiritual life and the Palestinian experience. Its mosques and their sounds have dominated Jerusalem for around one thousand four hundred years. Along with the mosques in Mecca and Madina it contends for primacy in Islam as the Holiest of Holies, and on three occasions it was treated as such in popular Muslim thinking. First in early Islam when it was the direction of prayer, then in the final throes of the crusades, and now.

This diary is about my private spiritual perspective on al-Aqsa temple. This of course is inevitably influenced by the facts that I am meticulously secular in my private life and my family is ethnically Christian from the villages that surround Nazareth and the Lake of Tiberius in the Galilee. Indeed, there is recurrent tension between Galileans like myself whose universe is centered around Nazareth and Nablus and the other Palestinians to whom Jerusalem and al-Aqsa sanctuary is focal.

simone daud

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Thursday September 24, 2009 · 7:21 AM PDT

2009/09/24 · 07:21

Many Palestinians were skeptical of the prospect that President Obama would somehow help end our tragedy. Some like myself were optimistic, perhaps he understands the urgency of our plight. No one hoped that he will help us carve a small state in our land where Palestinians can live in dignity sovereignty and pray in their temple without hindrance. At the very least, the optimists argued, he will stop the land theft. You could sometimes see a faint hope in even the skeptics when we optimists happened to advocate for Obama's mission. But in the typical conversation they charged that we are utterly absurd.

Yesterday even the skeptics among us were disappointed by President Obama.

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How the War on Terror was lost: Setting the stage (I)

Daily Kos is big enough for a progressive Palestinian-Israeli conversation

Ajami - Palestine's Oscar nominated film

Merry Christmas from the Arab Christian Kossacks

Alignment of planets over Palestine

Iran and Israel hold first talks since 1979

Al-Aqsa Sanctuary: The Palestinian Spirit

Even the Obama skeptics are disappointed