#like gulf arabs

[halalchampagnesocialist]

Kinda rhetorical kinda genuine q but where are all the rich Arabs who have more than enough money to donate to every fundraiser for Gaza?

[swamiiyasssss]

It's established that Damian is middle eastern......this is GOLD for interactions in the Bat Household:

Damian "Wallahi you're catching these hands, Dick" Wayne

Damian "Sorry Alfred, but mother's knafeh recipe will always be better" Wayne

Damian "KHOL KHARA. TODD." Wayne

Damian "Titussss, ya hayatiii, ya amarrr :3, " Wayne

May or may not fast during ramadan but u best believe this adorable gremlin will have colonised the kitchen during Eid and cooking up stuff even Alfred is impressed with. I'm talking Fattoush, Kofta, stuffed vine leaves, Baba ganoush, Makloub.

[myaoiboy]

do you believe Love Deterrence was kind of a love confession from Kaz to BB?

Sort of. Kind of. I do think it was about BB, and we know the lyrics are written by Kaz.

I don't know if we ever find out all the languages that BB speaks, obviously English, Russian, Spanish, that leaves iirc 3 more languages he speaks, and I don't know if Japanese is ever confirmed as one.

It seems likely given that he speaks to Kojima in PW, and that BB speaking other languages is translated for the player, but Venom also speaks to him and gets a verbal response in TPP, and we know that was in English due to [mumbled summary of TPP plot]. That's probably the closest we get to confirmation.

Anyways my point with that is, I tend to think that BB doesn't speak Japanese, at least not around Kaz, and Kaz intentionally wrote Love Deterrence in a language he didn't think BB knew so that he could get his feelings out without the utter mortification of actually sharing them.

[theinfinitedivides]

aight ok now that i've watched ep 7 i see some folks are review bombing KTL on MDL bc of the Arab prince storyline,,,,,, what are our thoughts

[talesinfallacies]

,

[goremeat]

thank you to Die Mannschaft for giving the L in LGBT a second meaning rather than adding another letter. we couldn't have done it without you.

[runawaycarouselhorse]

Once upon a time I found May embarrassing because I was naive and clumsy and suffered a lot from my naivete, so I hated seeing folks online call naivete not a real flaw/just being "too nice"... but I was always very defensive of her figure and hated those who believed she must be much older just because she has an hourglass shape as a preteen. I was the same way and just a year or two older than her when I joined the fandom and AG was airing.

Anyway, I love her and feel proud of her growth in DP.

My favourite Pokemon characters are mostly characters who everyone else hates, though. ^^;;

Oops... I love Jessie and Iris and Trip... I love tomboyish and tough girls as well as foppish and sensitive boys (so, Wishfulshipping and Rocketshipping are everything--throw in a class difference and I love the ship even more!), lonely rich kids whose parents are never around make up a bunch of my favourites too (Marielle, Diana Konderick/Fanny Fox, Lillie...), proud and aristocratic young ladies but who are nonetheless very kind at heart despite eccentricities and treasure their friends (Lillie, Marielle, Victorique de Blois, and Shinku)... so many characters with abandonment and/or mommy issues (Lillie, Soma Yuki, Soma Momiji, Hina-Ichigo, and Jessie to a degree too, although she hides it ^^;).

Characters that struggle to connect with others, or even act ornery or cold, to avoid being hurt--often isolated, ostracized, bullied, or simply house-bound (Iris, Victorique de Blois, Marielle)... or literally just characters that either come off as arrogant due to extreme shyness and avoidance of others, or who genuinely hide behind a projected false image of confidence to hide genuine insecurities (hi, Trip.)

its unreal how all of my favorite characters have exactly the same traits and hobbies and diagnoses as me

[soup-mother]

Literally every commonwealth soldier who died in Iraq "was someone's loved one" but hundreds of thousands of civilians bombed apparently weren't. and god knows noone here gave a shit about Iraqi soldiers. "they were the bad guys"

it's all western veterans with ptsd, never gulf war syndrome or famines or the collapse of economies. our soldiers get to fly home and cry about it, and cash in a check.

the amount of military bootlicking on Tumblr is insane. it's all "hate the military not the soldiers" like ppl didn't sign up on mass after 9/11. it's all "hate the system, not the pawn" until it's time to treat arab men like faceless corpses in waiting. stop acting like imperial veterans are all inherently revolutionary. a few ppl with a conscience doesn't rebuild countries or stop the next wave of willing volunteers.

[stuhde]

i had shared what is happening in sudan on a long facebook post last night, but it virtually received almost little to no engagement or shares from the nearly 600 “friends” i have on the site.

this morning, my great-aunt was shot by the soldiers fighting for power, and God forbid, i lose more of my family members before eid this friday.

please read below to understand what is happening and how you can help my country. i hope the tumblr community can show more kindness than the lack of support and advocacy i’ve seen elsewhere.

يا رب اجعل هذا البلد آمناً 🇸🇩

the lack of awareness and advocacy from the African, Arab, and Muslim diaspora and the human rights community has been painful.

while Western media has done little to no coverage of the ongoing conflict in the capital city of my motherland, Sudan, it appears that the rest of the world also partakes in normalizing crimes and violence against SWANA people.

violence and war hurting the SWANA region are NOT ordinary occurrences — no one, regardless of race, creed, ethnicity, religion, and gender, should experience the unprecedented amount of violence that harms my two living grandmothers, aunts and uncles, and baby cousins who live in Khartoum.

your decision to ignore reading or educating and discussing with others about what is likely to be a civil war is complicity in viewing SWANA people as individuals who regularly experience conflict and are undeserving of help.

the silence is damaging, and it is up to us as privileged members of the diaspora (or individuals living in the Western world committed to human rights) to support the people of my country and their dream for a stable, democratically elected government.

what is happening in Sudan is a fight that started on April 15 between two competing forces for power — the Sudanese Army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) — neither groups are representative of the needs of our people. The Sudan Army is loyal to the dictator, Omar Al-Bashir, and the RSF is responsible for the genocide in Darfur.

with both power struggles backed by different Arab and Gulf nations, the two parties have been fighting for power for the last few years. While they worked together to try and end the people’s revolution, they lost. however, they are now in a constant power play of who will get to rule the nation.

this all means that war is NOT a reflection of my country — violence does not represent the SWANA people. Sudan is a nation of beautiful culture, strong women, intellectual and influential Islamic scholars, poets, and youth at the front lines of the revolution. we are a people committed to a region of peace for ourselves and the rest of the Ummah.

my family and the rest of Sudan’s innocent civilians are at the most risk, with many currently without drinking water, food to eat, electricity, and complete blockage to any mosques during the final nights of Ramadan, our holiest month of the year.

i ask that you please keep Sudan and our people in your prayers — donate to the Sudan Red Crescent or a mutual aid GoFund Me, email your representatives if you live in a country that can put pressure on either competing force of power, discuss this with your family and friends, and please do not forget to think about SWANA people — our brothers and sisters in Syria, Yemen, Lebanon, and many others need our love and support.

الردة_مستحيلة ✊🏾

#KeepEyesOnSudan

[leroibobo]

another mena language post - i wanted to talk about judeo-arabic and clarify a little bit about what "judeo-arabic" means

the basics, for those of you who don't know: arabic, being a language that was spread over a large part of the world and has since evolved into many different forms, has many different things that differentiate certain dialects. languages/dialects can be influenced by languages speakers' ancestors spoke before, by the social structure of where speakers live, by languages they come into contact with, and by gradual evolution in pronunciation. (many letters like evolving into ones that are easier to pronounce - this is why arabic has no "p" sound, it eventually evolved into "f" or "b". the same thing happened in germanic languages to some extent, which is why we say "father" in english and "vader" in german while in romance languages it's some variation of "padre" or "père".) many arabic dialects in particular possess different substratum (obvious, traceable influence from languages people spoke in before shifting to the new one).

arabic, being a language that was spread over a large part of the world and has since evolved into many different forms, has many different regional dialects which are different for the reasons i described in the above paragraph. even though there's modern standard arabic (which is the subject of its own post), people speak regional dialects in real life. on top of that, there's a variety of social influences on different types of arabic, such as whether someone's living in the city or in the country, whether someone's sedentary or a bedouin, and in some cases religion.

in the middle east, religion was historically:

not seen as a personal choice, but as something you're born into and a group you're a part of, kind of like ethnicity;

not generally something governments actively wanted everyone to share one of at the penalty of ostracization due to sticking to your group being the more livable way of life in the area, or later, the benefits of things like imposing extra taxes on people who weren't the "correct" religion/branch (this is far from being a "muslim thing" btw, it's been in the area for a while now, i mean look at the assyrians);

an influential factor in where you lived and who you were more likely to interact with because of those two things. (for example, it wasn't uncommon for most of the people living in one village in the countryside to share one religion/branch of a religion. if your village converted, you converted, too. if they didn't, you didn't, either.)

this means that the influence of religion in different types of arabic is due to people of different religions living in or coming from different places, and who people talked to most often.

for example, in bahrain, most sedentary shia bahrainis' ancestors have lived on the island for a very long time, while most sedentary sunni bahrainis' ancestors immigrated from other places in the gulf and iran in the 18th century. therefore, while they've all interacted and shared different aspects of their dialects including loanwords, there are two "types" of bahraini arabic considered distinctive to sunni and shia bahrainis respectively, regardless of how long ago their ancestors got there. despite the differences being marked by the religion of the speakers, they have nothing to do with religion or contact/lack thereof between bahraini sunni and shia, but with the factors affecting the different dialects i mentioned in the first paragraph which influenced either group.

a similar phenomenon to this in english is class differences in accent in england. nothing in received pronunciation is actually something only rich people can say or unintelligible to poor people, it developed by the class differences influencing where rich and poor english people lived and the different pronunciation/linguistic histories in those places, as well with different classes keeping more to themselves.

the influence of religion on arabic dialects isn't universal and nowhere near as intense as it is with aramaic. some places, especially more cosmopolitan or densely populated places, are less likely to have very noticeable differences or any differences at all. in addition, certain variations of a dialects that may've been influenced by religion in some way (as well as urban dialects) may be standardized through tv/movies/social media or through generally being seen as more "prestigious", making more people who wouldn't have spoken them otherwise more likely to pick it up. (this is why so many arabic speakers can understand egyptian arabic - cairo is like the hollywood of the arabic-speaking world.) this is the case with many if not most countries' official and regional languages/dialects nowadays.

this phenomenon is what "judeo-arabic" refers to generally. like many other jewish diaspora languages, the "jewish" aspect is that it was a specific thing jewish people did to different types of arabic, not that it was isolated, possessed a large enough amount of certain loanwords (though some varieties did have them), or is unintelligible to non-jews. people were generally aware of differences where they existed and navigated between them. (for example, baghdadi jews may've switched to the more prestigious muslim baghdadi dialect when in public.) if you know arabic, listen to this guy speak, you should be able to understand him just fine.

judeo-arabic also often used the hebrew alphabet and some may have been influenced by hebrew syntax and grammar in their spelling. you can also see the use of script for religious identification in persian and urdu using the arabic script, and in english using the latin alphabet. in general, influences of hebrew/aramaic on different types of judeo-arabic aren't consistent. you can read more about that here.

"judeo-arabic" isn't a universal that definitely happened in every arabic-speaking part of the world that had jews in it to the same degrees, but it did definitely exist. some examples:

after the siege of baghdad in 1258, where mongols killed all muslim baghdadis and spared baghdadis of other religions, bedouins from the south gradually resettled the city. this means that the "standard" sedentary dialect in the south is notably bedouin influenced, while dialects in the north are more notably influenced by eastern aramaic. christians and (when they lived there) jews in baghdad have dialects closer to what’s up north. within those, there's specific loans and quirks marking the differences between "christian" and "jewish".

yemenite jews faced some of the most persistent antisemitic persecution in the middle east, so yemeni jewish arabic was more of a city thing and often in the form of passwords/codewords to keep jews safe. jews were usually a lot safer and better-regarded in the countryside, so jewish yemeni arabic was much less of a thing there, and when it was, it was less "serious".

due to the long history of maghrebi immigration to palestine, there's attestation of maghrebi influences in arabic spoken by some palestinian jews with that origin. this was also a thing in cairo to some extent.

(i'd link sources, but most of them are in hebrew, i guess you'll have to trust me on this one??)

still, the phrase "judeo-arabic" is often used with the implication that it was one all encompassing thing (which it wasn't, as you can see), or that jews everywhere had it in some way. many jews who spoke some version of arabic special to their mostly-jewish locale may not have registered it as a specifically "jewish" version of arabic (though they did more often than not). the truth is that research about anything related to middle eastern and north african jews is often sloppy, nonexistent, and often motivated by the desire of the researcher to prove something about israel's colonization of palestine (on either "side" of the issue). this is not me being a centrist about the colonization of palestine, this is me stating that academia is often (even usually) influenced by factors that aren't getting the best and most accurate information about something. i don't think we're going to get anything really "objective" on arabic spoken by jews in that regard for a long while.

for comparison's sake: yiddish is considered a separate language from german due to 19th century yiddishists' efforts to "evolve" yiddish from dialect to language (yiddish-speaking jews were said to speak "corrupted german" historically; on that note sephardim were also said to speak "corrupted spanish"). this was at a time when ethnic nationalism was en vogue in europe and declaring a national language meant declaring your status as a sovereign nation (both metaphorically and literally). for yiddishists to assert that they were speaking a language and not a dialect that intrinsically tied them to germans was to reject the discrimination that they were facing. (besides, german/austrian/swiss jews weren't speaking yiddish (leaving it with the connotation of being the language of those icky ostjuden), yiddish-speaking jews had practically zero other ties to germany/austria/switzerland, and yiddish-speaking jews (let alone the yiddishists) were almost entirely east of germany/austria/switzerland, so it's not like they were pulling this out of their ass.)

whether a jewish person of arabic-speaking descent calls it "arabic", "judeo-arabic", or something like "moroccan"/"syrian"/etc depends on who you're talking to, where they're from (both diaspora origins and today), how old they are, and what they think about zionism. despite "judeo-arabic" being what it's called in academia, on the ground, there's no real strong consensus either way because the social circumstances arabic-speaking jews lived in didn't drive them to form a movement similar to yiddishists. (not because there was no discrimination, but because the political/social/linguistic circumstances were different.) the occupation since made the subject of middle eastern jews’ relation to the middle east a contentious topic considering the political and personal weight behind certain cultural identifiers. the term "judeo-arabic" is modern in comparison - whether it's a distinction dredged up by zionist academics to create separations that didn't really exist or a generally accurate term for a specific linguistic phenomenon is a decision i'll leave you to make.

[itssideria]

Genuine question, really not sure what to do/who to vote for- uh do you have any suggestions? Protesting yes, but what now- today's like endless bad news

hey, anon.

i'm assuming you're referring to my post on the 'vote blue no matter what' gang — i wrote that in a complete (and justified) fit of anger. i should start by saying i am not american, or palestinian — i am an arab who grew up in an arab country, though, and all of us have long since grown sickened and enraged with american imperialism.

my honest answer? i don't know. i'm not american. i'm not a politician. maybe i'm some horrifically idealistic piece of shit but i just think that brazenly funding a genocide, lying about it, and then bombing the only country that tries to prevent it should earn you the death penalty, but oh well.

@/fairuzfan has posted a lot about this — she's a palestinian in the states. not tagging her bc we aren't mutuals. she has stated that she won't vote in the presidential elections at all, but rather at local levels and congress. one person has stated that they are engaging in activism more than ever, forming communities, movements, working their way up. other people will be voting for a third party candidate they agree with, such as Cornel West or Claudia de la Cruz — you can read up on their stances for yourself, i'm not active in US politics. some will threaten to withhold their vote from Biden, whether they are serious of pretending, as that may scare him into changing his tactics.

none of these are foolproof. most of them prevent nothing. i am aware that for americans this shit feels like life and death — it's what all of you say, every four years.

however, and i cannot state this enough, i am so past the point of caring. my entire region has been fucking devastated by your nation. egypt can't threaten suez access because it'll get invaded. yemen and syria and iraq are dealing with past and current bombing. the entire fucking gulf sucks your country's dick to get oil money to build vanity projects and hire more slave labour. and palestine? palestinian blood will run thick with the weight of the crimes the us committed against them.

for once in their stable, unaffected fucking lives, i want americans to pretend—pretend!—the rest of the world exists. for ONCE, i want americans to say "fuck this, he committed genocide, i will never write his name on my ballot". for ONCE, i want americans to sacrifice something, ANYTHING—you barely live under a democracy as is. poc americans report no improvement under biden compared to trump. white queer people think they'll be protected and so shout at the need to throw the developing world under the bus.

there are no good options. but dear God, just don't put the name of the man funding a genocide on your fucking ballot. it didn't save anyone four years ago. it won't now.

[centrally-unplanned]

This article about Hamas's strategic planning in the lead up to the October assault was at least a partial mind-changer for me. So far I had been viewing Hamas as executing a "bait" attack on Israel for international & domestic political reasons. Kill enough Israelis, and in particular take some hostages, to force Israel to invade Gaza; which you want because that will re-inflame radicalism, tank Israel's growing coziness with Arab states like the Gulf Monarchies, and keep the Palestine Question front-and-center on people's agendas.

What it was not about was achieving any sense of a military victory; Hamas did not think they would be able to defeat the IDF on the field, or even truly hold them back. They thought they would do better than they have in defending Gaza, to be honest, but the goal wasn't to "win" in that way or anything. The actions of Israel, in their inflamed bloodlust, would be the fulcrum of progress for Hamas. It was the most logical interpretation of their strategy, because tbh its working, Israel's strategy void has bungled this war at every level. Of course if it is "worth it" is a completely separate question - Hamas is playing a game from deep, deep in the red, if you aren't going to fold and pack it up from that position these are the hail mary plays you make.

This article, a long (and sometimes overly windy) interview with two career members of the Palestinian governing orgs (primarily Fatah), shines a very different light on that. They outline that over the past ~decade, Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar coalesced power around his own faction of highly fundamentalist adherents that convinced itself that divine favor was shining on them and they would be able to actually defeat Israel in the field. The most compelling evidence for this is a conference they held planning the post-conquest occupation of Israel:

So detailed were the plans that participants in the conference began to draw up list of all the properties in Israel and appointed representatives to deal with the assets that would be seized by Hamas. "We have a registry of the numbers of Israeli apartments and institutions, educational institutions and schools, gas stations, power stations and sewage systems, and we have no choice but to get ready to manage them," Obeid told the conference.

They even called people up to ask if they would take the job of governor of this-of-that province! This was not a bored-Friday white paper by any means. They discussed defensive plans and counter-offensives like that was on the table. Sinwar outlined conquest as the goal.

If we accept this premise, it naturally lends itself to the question "okay how did they get the rest of Hamas to go along with this?" Because Hamas is not all These Kinds of People, its a governing state that does politics on the international stage after all. One of the reasons I leaned towards my interpretation was that, for the past ~decade, Hamas has actually been doing a glam-up rebranding of the org to make it more moderate & respectable in international eyes. The 2017 Charter Revision is the biggest example, which included say disavowing the idea that this was a religious war (distinguishing between zionism & judaism), and loosely admitting to the idea that they could recognize Israel as a country if terms were met. Actions like these show actors who are pretty level-headed. Were they inauthentic? Did they change their mind?

Maybe a bit, but its more than they aren't the same people. Right alongside the build-up to the October attack was a purging & sidelining of whole swaths of Hamas leadership. Many were not even informed of the attack - though they knew something was coming. Apparently it leaked on October 2nd, and a bunch of leaders just immediately fled the Strip for safety. This one is the most amusing:

Haniyeh's eldest son took a similar course of action. Around midday on October 2, Abed Haniyeh chaired a meeting of the Palestinian sports committee, which is headed by the minister of sports, Jibril Rajoub. Suddenly he received a phone call, left the room for a few minutes and then returned, pale and confused. He immediately informed the committee – whose members were in a Zoom conference with counterparts in the West Bank – that he had to leave for the Rafah crossing straightaway, as he had just learned that his wife had to undergo fertility treatment in the United Arab Emirates. (He was lying.) He granted full power of attorney to his deputy and left the Gaza Strip hurriedly.

That is one way to duck out of a pointless meeting, take notes people!

So instead of my hail mary politics play, what you have is a story of an institutional coup by a radical faction - which for extremist resistance groups is an ever-present threat. None of this means the "bait" strategy part is wrong of course, that was definitely still the point - but this argument here claims that goal of the bait was to bring the IDF into Gaza where it could be defeated in the field with their extensive fortifications, and then presumably inspire others like Hezbollah to jump on the moment of weakness and besiege Israel proper.

So....is this true? There are two gigantic caveats on this article: the first is that the people being interviewed do not primarily work for Hamas - they are members of Fatah, the leading faction of the PLO. They hate Hamas, they are not Hamas leaders themselves, they have every incentive to paint Hamas as irredeemable. You really can't take this story simply at their word. But they aren't outsiders - they hate Hamas but they work with them constantly, that is how it works, people rotate around in the Palestine orgs. They have met personally and worked with dozens of Hamas leaders; one of them was even called to be offered one of those post-war occupation governorships! (He said no lol) So its a big red flag but not a damning one. And things like the fleeing leaders, the conference on the occupation, those all 100% happened. They released press on it, they weren't hiding it.

The second caveat is that its just really not uncommon for large organizations, particularly extremist ones, to engage in mainly performative actions at scale. The South Korean government still maintains a department that plans for the administration of North Korea for example! Not totally useless ofc, but it writes exactly the reports you think it does that get put in a bin and never touched. Sometimes its appeasing internal factions, sometimes its PR, sometimes its just institutional inertia. Its absolutely believable that Hamas would make a big plan for how they would conquer Israel because otherwise...what do you tell the commanders, exactly? Why are they fighting again? A significant percentage of the lower-level fighters need that belief, so you give it to them. While certainly there is a fundamentalist faction in Hamas, are they ones winning? Or are they just another faction being played against?

I don't see enough evidence to say, but there is enough to make me pause. I'm not sold on it in the end, that is my final conclusion. I think more brains than Sinwar were involved in this and they had more realistic aspirations. And yet the level of commitment and disorganization does suggest that at least some of what was pushing events forward was a group immune to doubts being at the wheel. Certainly interested in researching more.

[fairuzfan]

Interesting talk about how Arab Americans are one of the most ignored social categories in America. Apparently hate crime stats for Arab Americans were not even collected from the period of early 90's to 2015 (meaning not even during 9/11 and the Gulf War!).

This talk provides a good insight to the status of Arab Americans legally and how they're often some of the most targeted groups within legal framework (like with anti-terrorism laws).

[zvaigzdelasas]

Top White House official Brett McGurk is quietly floating a controversial plan to reconstruct Gaza after Israel’s assault concludes, HuffPost has learned, despite serious concerns from some officials inside the administration that it would sow the seeds for future instability in the region.

In recent weeks, McGurk has been pitching national security officials on a plan suggesting an approximately 90-day timeline for what should happen once active fighting in Gaza ends, three U.S. officials said. It argues that stability can be achieved in the devastated Palestinian region if American, Israeli, Palestinian and Saudi officials launch an urgent diplomatic effort that prioritizes the establishment of Israel-Saudi ties, the officials continued. Such a development is widely referred to as “normalization,” given Saudi Arabia’s refusal to recognize Israel since its founding in 1948.

There is a widespread belief that similar U.S.-led deals that involved Israel and other regional Arab governments — and that downplayed Palestinian concerns — have fueled anger and violence, including the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas and other Palestinian militants inside Israel.

Still, U.S. President Joe Biden has echoed his predecessor Donald Trump in arguing that those agreements are vital for the region’s future. Biden’s focus on an Israel-Saudi pact has been especially alarming for Palestinians and officials working on Israeli-Palestinian peace. And McGurk’s accelerated timeline has only caused more concern.

McGurk’s plan would use the incentive of aid for reconstruction from Saudi Arabia and possibly other wealthy Gulf countries like Qatar and the United Arab Emirates to pressure both the Palestinians and the Israelis, per the officials. In this vision, Palestinian leaders would agree to a new government for both Gaza and the occupied West Bank and to ratchet down their criticisms of Israel, while Israel would accept limited influence in Gaza.[...]

A recently conducted poll of Saudis by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy found that nearly 96% believe Arab states should cut any ties with Israel over its conduct in Gaza, and Saudi Arabia has long maintained that it will not establish ties with Israel unless the Israelis permit the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Meanwhile, a host of other forces in the region would rage against an agreement perceived as sidelining Palestinians. That group includes the Houthis[...] “These plans are delusionally optimistic and have numerous spoilers and parties that will be unlikely to cooperate or do what the U.S. plans,” one U.S. official said, pointing to the Houthis but also Palestinians and Israelis[...]

Secretary of State Antony Blinken this week told Israeli counterparts that he expects them to do more to achieve a Saudi-Israel pact than they would have had to do prior to their campaign in Gaza, The Times of Israel reported.[...]

McGurk previously worked on Middle East issues under Trump, who promoted his set of agreements between Arab states and Israel — the so-called Abraham Accords — as one of his biggest triumphs.[...]

In his first public remarks after the Oct. 7 attack, McGurk claimed that he never sidelined Palestinian concerns in pursuing an Israel-Saudi agreement.[...]

“There’s a lot of deja vu in what we’re hearing about the allegedly new thinking,” said Khaled Elgindy, an analyst at the Middle East Institute think tank and former adviser to the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah. “I have a hard time believing that the administration that misread the region for three years before Oct. 7 and certainly deprioritized the Palestinians … can understand Palestinian aspirations.”

“Even if they did understand what was required, would any Palestinian leader be willing to trust them after they have facilitated the annihilation of Gaza?” Elgindy added.[...]

Blinken raised the idea of a new Palestinian Authority cabinet with Abbas this week and the Palestinian leader’s response was “poor,” a U.S. official told HuffPost. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller disputed that presentation in an email to HuffPost, writing, “This account is false in every respect.”[...]

Lawmakers have repeatedly said their interest in helping Israel make friends in its neighborhood does not outweigh their concerns about what the U.S. would need to commit to in diplomacy for a Saudi-Israel pact — likely a binding American defense treaty with Saudi Arabia and U.S. assistance with a Saudi nuclear program, among other enticements. Congress would have to approve a treaty and could also scrutinize or bar other U.S.-Saudi deals.

12 Jan 24

[city-of-ladies]

"In the royal inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser III (744-727 BCE) is a detailed passage describing the defeat of a foreign ruler. It reads just like every other description of an Assyrian king defeating an enemy: a description of how desolate the land is, a short phrase saying the enemy was destroyed, a detailed explanation of the aftermath of the battle, and finally the foreign ruler surrendering and sending gifts to their new ruler. What sets this passage apart is the gender of the ruler: Samsi is not a king, but has the title šarrat aribī — “Queen of the Arabs”. 

Samsi was not the only woman with this title in the royal inscriptions — in total, five women are called “Queen of the Arabs”. One was imposed as ruler of the Arabs by the Assyrian king, and two more were queens of cities along the Persian Gulf in the Arabian Peninsula. These women are described as sending tribute to Assyria, leading armies, and in one instance there is a suggestion that they had a prominent religious role in their community. 

The institution of “woman kings” lasted over 200 years. It was clearly an important element of Northwestern Arabian society in the first millennium. Sadly, with very little written evidence from the Arabians during this time, we can only rely on the Assyrian narrative. Samsi and the other “women kings” may have been part of a much older institution, and there are likely many other women whose names have been lost over time. Thankfully the little information recorded by the Assyrian scribes that we have about these women has ensured their legacy has not been forgotten, and Samsi can serve as a reminder of the power these ancient women held."

[octuscle]

It’s so bitterly cold here in the Midwest USA, I wish I could be hanging with hunky guys in Dubai or something for Christmas. You think you could help me with that man?

You should have landed at Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport by now. But because of a snowstorm, you were diverted to Chicago O'Hare International Airport. This cursed journey to the holidays is getting worse by the minute. And if you drink another beer to drown your frustration, you're going to puke. But right now you need to take a piss. You find it a little difficult to get up. Firstly, because of the alcohol in your blood. On the other hand, because you've become a real heavyweight since last Christmas. A bit more exercise and less eating and drinking would also do you a lot of good…

The toilet is empty. It's amazing that so many people are stranded here so close to the holidays… And there's a sports bag by the washbasin. And it's still there when you come back from the urinals. Not a soul in sight… Could there be a bomb in there? A normal and sober person would now inform the security service. But you are definitely not sober. So you grab the bag. And in a reasonably quiet corner, you check the contents. Jackpot! Not much special. Sportswear, a white nightgown… And a wallet with quite a lot of cash, a passport from the UAE and above all: a flight ticket to SHJ. No idea what and where that is. But you have to change planes at JFK and DOH. That sounds exotic. It certainly sounds better than Kansas. Boarding starts in 20 minutes. As best you can with your beer belly, you walk towards the gate.

When you arrive at the gate, boarding is almost complete. The ground crew member asks you for your boarding pass and passport. Shit, you didn't even think about the fact that you don't look like your passport photo. The guy looks at your passport, looks at you, grins and wishes you a good flight. As you pass him, you hear him say to his colleague that you've really become a fat pig since the photo was taken. Well, that's probably your luck in this case.

You have a layover of over five hours at JFK. You heard in the in-flight program that the TWA Hotel & Fitness Center at JFK is supposed to be the largest hotel gym in the world. You really need a gym. And you have time too. So you set off. Not much sporting activity is to be expected from you. But after an hour of power walking on the treadmill and half an hour on the cross trainer, your new sports clothes from the bag you found are soaked with sweat. But you feel fit. Really fit. As you stand in front of the mirror after your shower, you run your hands over your stomach. Flat and hard. When you tense your muscles. That's how it should be. And you get rid of the rest of the fat too. It sucks with the beard. You shaved your beard for Thanksgiving. Because you were invited to a friend's parents' house. You didn't want to scare them off with your beard. But now the beard hasn't grown back the way you'd hoped. Your mother will scold you terribly.

You grab a salad and a protein shake at the bar in the gym. You want to sleep on the plane. The food on board is delicious and plentiful, but not good for your body. To make sleeping on board quicker, you put on just a tank top and jogging suit for the flight. It takes you a good twelve hours to reach Doha. You want to use this time to arrive home well-rested.

At boarding, the ground staff greet you in Arabic. Of course. As usual. It's nice to study in the USA. But you don't have to stay with the infidels in winter. You're now looking forward to the warm sun in the Gulf. The person sitting next to you is a non-believer. And obviously not familiar with Qatar Airways' in-flight catering. She has brought a large portion of chicken wings with fries from KFC on board. You almost feel sick. She offers you something. You flex your biceps and say in English with a heavy Arabic accent that you can't get these babies at KFC.

The flight was quiet, apart from the brief interruption during which you fucked the infidel chick in the airplane toilet. You'll have to do without a wet pussy for the next few weeks. Hehehe, but your cousins and your bruhs have tight asses. That works at least as well. You only have just under two hours in Doha before the last flight segment. You quickly go to the airport mosque, do your ablutions and sunset prayers, change into your spotless white dishdasha and board the plane to Sharjah. Over the next few weeks, you are the perfect son again. You will enjoy it. And as soon as the crazy holidays of the infidels are over, you'll be looking forward to fucking, drinking and partying again!

I found the last picture of you before you change to immaculate white at @alphaincar