Barry Rubin Interview On Recent Events In The Middle East

The following by Barry Rubin is reposted here with permission:

I'm Interviewed on the Latest Middle East Developments

Note: This is a revised and updated version of an interview I gave recently.

--Do you have anything remotely hopeful to say about the trajectory of the Arab Spring today?

Laugh. Aha! Fishing for optimism. Okay. First, the anti-Islamist opposition in Egypt and Tunisia has coalesced. There's hope for autonomy for a moderate Kurdish area in Syria. And more people in the West have woken up to the situation and the danger. That's about it for optimism about the region. I am far more optimistic about Israel's strategic situation but that's another issue.

Seriously, though, in Egypt and Tunisia there is a battle and the Islamists face serious opposition.

Arlene Kushner: Roundup Of Recent Middle East Events And israel

From Arlene Kushner:

April 15, 2012: A Day at a Time

I'm back to normal (whatever that means) after Pesach, but don't see that anything of enormous import seems to have happened over the holiday week.

I ended with good news before the chag, and will pick up with a continuation of that same good news -- this concerning Zakkai, who had surgery to remove a tumor from his spine right before Pesach. The update on this is that an MRI was done, and, indeed, the surgeons got everything off his spine.  Baruch Hashem!  In about two weeks he will have similar surgery in his thoracic cavity, and, as long as the tumor is not adhering too persistently to his aorta, it is expected to go well.  Keep praying.

~~~~~~~~~~

King Abdullah of Jordan is waxing very nervous because of increased talk that Jordan is the Palestinian state.  Since a majority of the Jordanians (including his queen) are of Palestinian Arab origins, and since what we call Jordan today was lopped off from what had been promised to the Jewish people as a homeland via the Mandate for Palestine and rendered Judenrein, indeed Jordan is the Palestinian state.  Any notion of establishing yet another Palestinian state is a political redundancy that ignores history and Jewish rights.

Mideast Media Sampler 08/22/2011

From DG:

1) The phone excuse

As far as I can tell, the interview hasn't been published yet by Time magazine. The Jerusalem Post reports:

Lebanese State Prosecutor Saeed Mirza on Saturday denied reports made by one of the four Hezbollah members indicted for the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri that the government in Beirut knows his location but is unable to arrest him, Lebanon’s Daily Star newspaper reported.

Arlene Kushner On Israel Standing Its Ground

From Arlene Kushner:

August 17, 2011

"No Caving Here"

This news is only hours old, and too important to be missed: 

Prime Minister Netanyahu has informed Secretary of State Clinton that there will be no apology to Turkey for the killing of nine Turkish citizens associated with a terrorist group last year, when the Mavi Marmara -- a  ship flying under a Turkish flag -- participated in a flotilla attempt to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza.  When Israeli soldiers boarded the ship, Turkish members of IHH, a radical Islamic group with ties to Hamas, attacked them.