BURQAS ON BUSES

New Zealanders don’t know a burqa from niqab and hijab. A burqa covers the whole body, Afghani style. Niqab is the eye slit jobby and hijab covers only the hair and neck. I have worn hijab myself along with jeans and an ordinary shirt. It’s no different than a light hat and scarf. Young Palestinian girls dressed me up in it for a bit of fun and I wanted to know what it felt like. I wore it round for half a day in the refugee camp where I was staying. It certainly blended you into the crowd and it was not uncomfortable. I went jogging first, then walked down to the beach and visited the graveyard near the beach. Nobody took a blind bit of notice of me. That had not been the case the day before, when I wandered around the camp without Hijab. The camp has a population of around 30,000. You can’t get in without a permit. The Lebanese army guard the entrance at an initial checkpoint. The PLA guard a secondary checkpoint. Everyone knows everyone, at least by sight. Without Hijab I was a stranger and was immediately recognised as such. Hijab gave me anonymity. It can look very pretty. I attended a wedding near Tripoli in Northern Lebanon – not Tripoli in Libya. The women looked fabulous. Palestinians take wedding cakes very seriously – see the photo. I was told the Quran directs that men and women dress modestly. They told me there was nothing in the Quran that dictated burqa or niqab. And, I never saw anyone in Lebanon wearing niqab or burqa. We do not ordinarily allow people here to enter banks, courts and various other forums with their faces covered, and quite rightly too. If I went to Saudi Arabia (friend of the US) or Iran (enemy of the US) I would have to wear what their law directs on pain of serious punishment. I recommend that Muslim women here respect our law and our culture. Hijab is quite enough. It identifies you as Muslim, it is modest and it adequately fulfils any constraints that might be inferred from the direction of the Quran.

The Trouble With Oranges

I have a lease on an orange orchard in southern Lebanon, about 25km from the Golan Heights. The lease is held in partnership with a Palestinian refugee who is one of Ramallah’s representatives for Palestinians to the Lebanese government. He describes himself as “un-factioned”. In fact he has a long time association with US approved Fatah. I think the US approval really only springs from a favourable comparison to Hamas.

People here often seem to be confused about Hamas and Hizbollah. Hamas controls the Palestinian Parliament and governs the Gaza Strip from behind a wall that Israel built. The US and Israel classify Hamas as a terrorist organisation, the UN does not. Unsurprisingly, Palestinians are a bit upset about the wall. It reduces Gaza to a ghetto comparable to the Warsaw ghetto. The Warsaw ghetto existed behind a wall that the Nazis built. Palestinians aligned with Hamas fire primitive rockets and homemade bombs at Israel from behind the wall. Israel strikes Gaza with some of the most sophisticated weaponry in existence today. Israel’s military is US backed and funded. Surgical strike technology notwithstanding, Palestinian casualties vastly outnumber Isreal's. It’s an entirely unsatisfactory situation, given that dead is dead regardless of your ethnicity, political loyalties or religion.

The Sunni and Shia branches of Islam are analogous to Roman Catholic and Protestant branches of Christianity. Sunni and Shia have been known to get a bit fractious with one another through history, as have Catholics and Protestants. Most Palestinians are Sunni. Hizbollah is Shia. It finds its support from Iran and Syria. Iran is predominantly Shia. Syria's government is Shia dominated. The Sunni - Shia juxtaposition is not a specific problem in Lebanon, but it all adds to the tapestry and tension in the region.

Hizbollah is classified as a terrorist organisation by the US and Israel. That is not an opinion universally held. They hold democratic elections in Lebanon. Hezbollah and its allies hold 57 seats in Lebanon's 128 seat parliament. But, Hizbollah’s existence in Lebanon was Israel’s excuse for its invasion and veritable flattening of Lebanon in 2006. I say flattening because they took out most major infrastructure: roads, bridges, telecommunications - and the irrigation to my oranges. The Refugee and me lost 127 young trees. Remarkably in the circumstances, he managed to pay back most of the capital in the years since then. The lease will be sold later this year and I expect the small remaining amount will be paid back along with some capital gain. It was a business deal done on a handshake. It’s turned out quite well, especially when compared to some of my friend’s investments during that period, in Bridgecorp and the like.

The popular protests that have spread across the Middle East have reached Syria. At the moment, the Refugee can’t get our oranges across the Syrian border and through to Dubai where they are supposed to be sold. It’s a problem but he’ll find a way or another market. He always does. Resourceful people, Palestinians. I saw the Queen on TV visiting Ireland. Isn’t it amazing how things can turn around? Catholic France and protestant England were at war for most of the period between 1688 and 1815. They seem to get on pretty well now. They tunnelled through. I hope the Refugee and my oranges make it.

Lambcut on the Holocaust

Posted by Lambcut (the Brunette is still away)

With the death of bin Laden, there is a lot of chat on the blogosphere about Muslims and the Middle East. Most of it is horrifyingly misinformed. I commented just now on a post of Cactus Kate’s – “Hone Denigrates Jews”. Kate’s post is not directly related to the bin Laden situation but it threw up Holocaust rhetoric undoubtedly heated by bin Laden’s death. Having spent time and done business in the Middle East, I am familiar with the Levant and Palestinians in particular. I commented as follows in reply to Kate’s outpourings. Busted Blonde and the Brunette will probably have me killed for posting it on Roarprawn, but, here it goes anyway:

No sane person should ever stoop to detract from the sufferings endured during the Holocaust mainly by Jews, but also by gays, gypsies, the disabled and communists. Having said that, no sane person should stoop to detract from the sufferings now being endured by Palestinians. The Palestinians call the events that took place in 1948 the Catastrophe. It’s not comparable on a numeric basis to the Holocaust, but it’s getting pretty bad. Around one million Palestinians were displaced at the time or shortly following the Catastrophe. More than ten thousand Palestinians are currently imprisoned without due process in Israel. Hezbollah has about one prisoner currently – Corporal Gilad Shalit, a combatant. I am not aware that Hamas have any – but I am happy to be corrected especially as to numbers. A significant number of the Palestinians held by Israel are minors. Most by any reckoning are civilians. Around 350,000 Palestinians are living as stateless refugees without full human rights in the Lebanon. They are not able to own land or occupy most professions (ironically, a very similar situation to Jews in Europe until later in the 19th century). Because they only have refugee passports it is very difficult for them to emigrate elsewhere. Most of Palestine has been taken unlawfully beyond the Israeli borders that were established during the ’67 war. 1.6 million Palestinians living in Gaza have been walled off in a ghetto easily comparable to Warsaw. Palestinian deaths attributable to the conflict outnumber Israeli deaths attributable to the conflict around ten to one.

And we in the West, we authored this situation to salve our conscience about the various roles our state’s played in contribution to the Holocaust.

NEVER MESS WITH LAMBCUT

Lambcut is the sister of Busted Blonde

Never ever mess with her....

These are her office decorations....
True, no shit... really....

We think this will leave a stain in whaleoils undies......

WIKI, HOLOCOUSTS AND A WORLDLY LAMB

Lambcut's pen began to drip red ink when she read this post.

It is suspected that this post will be too left field for the Splendidly Busted One’s navy blue blog. But, if you are reading it then she has surprised the Lamb and published.

No sane person is a Holocaust denier. The Holocaust, without a breath of a doubt, was the greatest travesty and horror of the twentieth century. Having said that, if one puts aside sub groupings amongst Semitic peoples (Arabs, including Palestinians are Semitic too), the horror continues into this century unabated, and it continues unsung.

We, and I mean we in the Western aligned countries, continually report on the lives lost among our people in the fight against “terror”, against the “Axis of Evil”.

Oy! It’s enough already!

It’s actually quite hard to Google up good sound sources on the death ratio regarding US and Allied incursions. Try it and see. You have to go a lot more than six clicks deep. It behooves an inquiring mind to wonder why. Where are, and what happened to the ladies and gentlemen of the Fourth Estate. American and allied losses are around 4,500. That figure we can be sure of. It Googles easily and in bulk from sound sources.

On the other hand, estimates of the number of Iraqis killed since the war started on March 20, 2003, range from nearly 91,000 to more than 600,000. Blowed if I know with any certainty; and nor do you. What we can know with considerable certainty is that Iraqi civilian losses outweigh ours, tens of thousands to one. Reporters there make their reports from sheltered compounds in the major cities, quite misleadingly, as though they were in the field as first hand observers.

Lambcut knows this from first hand knowledge of reporting with regard to the 2006 Israeli incursion into the Lebanon. Let us not go into that, or BB, out of misplaced protectiveness toward Lambcut, will never publish.(note from Editor BB - But we will write the book!)

Try Googling Corporal Gilad Shalit. He is the Israeli soldier still held hostage presumably somewhere in the Lebanon. See what you get in the first six clicks. A multitude of sound sources Google up from that search. Now try Googling information on the 11,000 Palestinians held by Israel; held without trial or due process of law. You won’t find a single name from among the souls languishing there. Not one. Not in the first six clicks; probably not on the first six pages.

There can’t be much doubt for any “well informed person” (although Lambcut seldom meets any here in NZ) that the entire Middle Eastern problem centers on strategic control of Middle Eastern oil stocks and Palestine’s importance in that regard. It’s all about the oil. The Western media has managed very ably to perpetrate the myth that Palestinians and Israelis have “always fought” and that peace cannot reasonably be expected - ever. Let Lambcut tell you, as a matter of incontrovertible historical fact that Israel didn’t even bloody well exist until 1948.

Get this - England and France spent around 300 years at war. How long did the Irish conflict last? We can hope for and we can expect peace in the Middle East. Unnaturally drawn borders never last. Be in no doubt, the lack of hope with regard to the Israeli Palestinian conflict is Israeli generated spin.

As to Lambcut’s suspicion of fatuous, superficial, sound-bite twitter reporting: in that thing Lambcut shares BB’s suspicions. Poor, indeed very poor journalism is at the root of the matter. All of you who might still regard the media as a special thing, the fourth estate of government with a singular privilege and a commensurate responsibility, you go forward now, and do something about it.