"How can we negotiate with a state that wants to kill us?"

While the US is having its current drama about events that may or may not have happened at a high school party 30+ years ago, an actual important drama is brewing and being ignored.

“We’re accumulating risk in the Middle East by not getting at Iran’s proliferation,” [Brian Hook, the State Department's special representative for Iran] said. “There is something brazen about this missile behaviour, they’re not even hiding it. This sort of escalation is deeply concerning..."

"The Iranians have to decide are they a nation state or a revolution,” [The Saudi foreign minister] said, underlining that Iran had diverted virtually all its additional revenues from the removal of sanctions into its regional agenda, including support for the Houthi rebellion.

“If a missile is launched at Saudi Arabia and UAE what will be reaction be and how will we be defended?” said UAE Ambassador to the US Yousef Al Otaiba.

Maybe we could ask if the government can spend a few minutes considering this when they get done with their he-said, she-said partisan argument?

UAE ambassador asks how allies will defend country from Iran's missiles

Fresh milk, sir?

You have to hand it to the Saudis - they come up with some novel ideas:

http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/saudi-arabia/saudi-women-use-fatwa-in-driving-bid-1.643431

Our trailers are not trash

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the border problem we have with Saudi Arabia so I have decided to open the topic. I find it hypocritical to offer aid to the Palestinians shackled by occupation and to aid the poor Muslims all over the world, and to even distribute luxurious copies of the Holy Quran to all over the world and yet be so cruel to the men that work so hard for so little. Ok, so the UAE has some border issues that need resolving, and we pulled out of the monetary union, but it's silly to take it out on the economy and on defenseless drivers. This is cowardly, immature and shows extreme short-sightedness. In the name of every sweaty driver, I demand an apology from those responsible.

Saudis pimp their rides

I love this - the hydraulic bit is just amazing:


Video link

Mile High Tower to Surpass the Deathspire?

Maybe, if Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal gets his way:

Kingdom Holding Company, controlled by Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, plans to invite contractors to submit bids before July to build the world's tallest tower in Saudi Arabia, reported our sister publication Meed. The Mile High Tower, which could reach 1,600 metres in height, is to be built in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah and may cost up to $10bn. The Mile High tower could be twice as tall as the Burj Dubai, Meed said.

Shocking Saudis!

Agence France Presse:

An advertising agency in Saudi Arabia plans to air public service commercials to promote kinder treatment of domestic helpers in a country where reports of abuse of foreign workers abound. The ads will air on Arab satellite television stations after the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, expected to end on October 12, said Kaswara al-Khatib, founder and chief creative director of Full Stop Advertising.

[...] "We deal with helpers as if they are not humans and have no feelings," (quote from Kaswara al-Khatib, founder and chief creative director of Full Stop Advertising).

[...] Reports of exploitation ranging from the withholding of salaries and passports to physical assault and sexual abuse are increasingly appearing in the local press.

New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) charged in August that the beating to death of two Indonesian female workers by a Saudi family highlighted the "atmosphere of impunity fostered by government inaction" toward abusive employers.

In July 2004, HRW was accused by Riyadh of exaggerating the incidence of foreign labor abuse in Saudi Arabia after it released a report alleging that foreign workers were systematically exploited, some of them living in slave-like conditions.

Riyadh police teamed up with the Sri Lankan Embassy in September to rescue a Sri Lankan maid who had telephoned the Arab News newspaper to say she had been imprisoned, abused and unpaid by her woman employer for at least seven years. [...]

__________________________________

I find it shocking and revolting that such practices happen in Saudi. Islam is not about covering your hair and acting prude or not speaking to ghair-mahram men while you starve your domestic help at home, it starts with treating your fellow human being with dignity, respect and mercy, especially when you are in a position of power over them!.

Indeed, as the ad campaign features, "He who has no mercy will not receive mercy,"(Hadeeth quote) Certainly in this case that's how it should be!

Director of "The Kingdom" talks about the UAE

Peter Berg, director of the new movie "The Kingdom" (partial filmed here in the UAE), which is due to open on the 11th, was interviewed on Hardball last Friday, and had a few comments about his experiences interacting with people in the UAE and Saudi Arabia:

I have met very few Saudis that have anything nice to say about any Iraqis. I haven‘t met anyone—there‘s so much competition in the Middle East...

The Kuwaitis don‘t like the Iraqis. The Saudis don‘t like the Iraqis. The UAE doesn‘t like anyone. Everyone hates Iran.

...people ask me, coming back from the Middle East, what—you know, what I observed and what—what my takeaway is, in terms of what—what can help. And—and the only thing that I consistently go back to is, by far, the—the country in the Middle East that seems to be functioning as peacefully as—as possible is the UAE.

It‘s cities like Dubai and Abu Dhabi, where capitalism has taken ahold, and there‘s such investment and growth going on in those cities, that they police themselves. And I had dinner with Sheikh Mohammed of—of Dubai. And I asked him, you know, why there had been no attacks in his country, a country which has alcohol, which has a—women are allowed to wear bikinis, and there‘s a much more Western lifestyle.

And he just, quite simply, pointed to the Burj Hotel and said, we won‘t let it happen.

The whole transcript is here (you have to scroll down to after the commercial break) and the video is here.

Good news animal story

The Daily Mail (UK) is intrigued by the beauty contest for camels being held in Saudi Arabia. These camels appear to get better treatment than some humans:

"In Lebanon they have Miss Lebanon," jokes Walid, moderator of the competition's Web site. "Here we have Miss Camel."
...
"The nose should be long and droop down, that's more beautiful," explains Sultan al-Qahtani, one of the organisers. "The ears should stand back, and the neck should be long. The hump should be high, but slightly to the back."

The camels are divided into four categories according to breed - the black majaheem, white maghateer, dark brown shi'l and the sufur, which are beige with black shoulders. Arabic famously has over 40 terms for different types of camel.

Some females have harnesses strapped around their genitalia to thwart any efforts by the males to mount them. One repeat offender called Marjaa has been moved away.

It's all here.Like Miss Lebanon, the Miss Camel competition winners get large prizes.

Saudi Writer Recasts Kingdom's History

Washington Post:

The pervasive religiosity permeating his childhood here, where Wahhabism is the state ideology, sparked a burning question in young Dakhil's mind: How had these Wahhabi clerics come to wield so much power and authority?

After decades of research and a doctoral thesis on the history of the Wahhabi movement, Dakhil came up with an answer. The clerics had inherited their power from Wahhab. The fiery, puritanical preacher had been instrumental in catapulting the House of Saud ahead of others vying for power at the time and became an influential and trusted partner in the first Saudi state. That alliance between the ruling family and the clergy continued down the generations, with the Wahhabis eliminating all other doctrines, taking charge of education and enforcing their strict brand of Islam in mosques and schools.

The religious connection also gave the Saud family legitimacy to oversee Islam's holiest places.

Dakhil's findings offer a new reading of the Wahhabi movement that contradicts the official narrative and could lead to a reduction of the clergy's power.

UAE connection:

Dakhil was allowed to publish only the first two of a set of three articles, and a rebuttal to attacks in the Saudi press on his work, before his newspaper, al-Ittihad, asked him to stop writing on the subject and then put him on indefinite leave. The paper is based in the United Arab Emirates, a close Saudi ally.
...
In an article in the Dubai-based Forbes Arabia, Dakhil suggested that members of the appointed consultative Shoura Council, especially if it becomes an elected body, join the royal council to weigh in on who becomes king. Local censors ripped out Dakhil's column in the December issue before allowing it into the kingdom.

("United Arab Emirates, a close Saudi ally"? Some closer than others, I believe.)

Today's posts are brought to you by the letter X, and the + sign

Youssef Ibrahim is a journalist. He has served as a reporter for the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. For several years he wrote opinion pieces for Gulf News. More recently he has been writing for the New York Sun.

From his article today:

The letter "X" soon may be banned in Saudi Arabia because it resembles the mother of all banned religious symbols in the oil kingdom: the cross.

The new development came with the issuing of another mind-bending fatwa, or religious edict, by the infamous Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice — the group of senior Islamic clergy that reigns supreme on all legal, civil, and governance matters in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The commission's damning of the letter "X" came in response to a Ministry of Trade query about whether it should grant trademark protection to a Saudi businessman for a new service carrying the English name "Explorer."
. . .
Another bright light of the commission, Sheik Abdel-Aziz al-Sheikh, recently stopped a government reform proposal aimed at creating work for women by allowing them to replace male sales clerks in women's clothing stores. Sheik al-Sheikh damned the idea, saying it was a step "towards immorality and hellfire." The underlying logic is breathtaking: Women are more protected by buying their knickers from men!