[Debate] A Muslim View - Of dictators and liberators

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

The main utility of Israel, from the POV of Gulf Arab ruling classes
and their imperialist patrons, seems to lie in its capacity to make
Arabs, Muslims, et al. forget that most of them suffer more from what
the Gulf Arab ruling classes do than what their Israeli counterpart
does.

On Wed, Apr 11, 2012 at 6:53 AM, Ran Greenstein <rangreen at sn.apc.org> wrote:
> The most important fallacy of this kind of analysis is inability to
> look at political
> realities without invoking conspiracies: if the Saudi and Qatari regimes align
> themselves with the US it is because they share interests, not because
> the former
> are stooges of the latter. The same goes for their relationship with
> Israel: their
> interests intersect at some points and diverge at others. A rational
> analysis would
> seek to identify such points and their potential implications, rather
> than replace
> this task with empty rhetoric and invective
>
> On Wed, Apr 11, 2012 at 9:45 AM, Riaz K Tayob <riaz.tayob at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Of dictators and liberators
>
>> Zafar Bangash, Reflections
>>
>> With notable exceptions, dictators rule much of the Muslim world. They carry
>> many fancy titles: kings, amirs, presidents, prime ministers and, of course
>> generals and colonels. What is common between them is that they are all
>> subservient to the West even while they terrorize their own people.
>> The uprisings that erupted in the Muslim East (aka the Middle East) more
>> than a year ago have changed the political landscape in radical ways. Old
>> equations have been disrupted and Middle Eastern tyrants have been forced to
>> adopt a new language and style even as they continue to implement old
>> policies hoping to ride out the storm. They have also been exposed in ways
>> they did not wish to reveal for fear of antagonizing their people further.
>> Thus, while it was always known that the tribal and family-run regimes are
>> subservient to the US, their links with the Zionist State were a closely
>> guarded secret. Barring three countries — Turkey, Egypt and Jordan — that
>> have had open relations with Zionist Israel, others have been coy about
>> these links. The Islamic Awakening sweeping the region has forced these
>> regimes to come out of purdah. Two regimes in particular, Saudi Arabia and
>> Qatar, both family-run fiefdoms stand utterly exposed as not only American
>> but Zionist stooges.
>
>
> --
> Ran Greenstein
> Johannesburg, South Africa
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-- 
Yoshie Furuhashi
<http://mrzine.org/>