By Ramzi E. Khoury
Ramallah on Tuesday, March 11, 2008

The world media concluded that the results of Malaysian elections were fascinating. What was more so fascinating was the media coverage which was biased before, during and even after the election results.
Way before Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi dissolved parliament and called elections, media reported that elections will certainly be rigged and allegations of fraud continued all through the elections despite the fact that these elections were the most transparent and clean in Malaysia’s history according to the pessimistic analysts who later had to dump their predictions and justify what came.
Once election results were declared, media dropped its allegations of fraud as if they were never made and focused instead on the historic loss of the Barisan National coalition predicting that “Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi will most certainly resign after the losses his party endured.”
Due to the negative tone of the media, the typical recipient who relies on media reports without ability to scrutinize action on the ground or the elections results, thought that Badawi and his allies lost the elections, yet he is not willing to lose his seat as Prime Minister. Badawi’s coalition won the elections and not only this, but Badawi has the duty to make what he started an ongoing success story!
Why would a Prime Minister who just won elections drop his seat in “shame” and since when is it a necessity in a true democracy to win a two thirds majority in Parliament to be victorious?!!  How many democratic governments out there have a two-thirds majority? What a ridiculous expectation by any means!
Before elections, the fact that the ruling coalition enjoyed 90 percent of parliamentary seats was used by the media and Malaysia’s adversaries as proof of its lack of democracy and unwillingness to allow for proper representation.
At... [Read More]

By Ramzi E. Khoury

Jeddah, on Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Comparatively speaking, the Jewish eligible voters in the USA are determined participators in elections but seeing the focus of the front-runners, you would think they are the main determining factor on who will win a party’s nomination for presidency!

Now that the competition is as hot as it can get between Hillary and Barak for the Democratic nomination, and despite the fact that at the outset of the process they had both done everything a candidate can do to assure the Jewish voters as per their policy on Israel, they have again turned back to focus on Israel in an attempt to secure that Jewish vote and in a manner that implies that the elections are all about who is a greater supporter of Israel and therefore should become the next president!

No wonder both Barak Obama and Hillary Clinton are both pissed off at Ralf Nader who decided to nominate himself; an act of aggression that can only be at the expense of the Democrat nominee. Even Nader who is blamed for aiding greatly in the losses suffered by the Democrats in the past elections came out at the outset of declaring his nomination attacking both Hillary and Barak on count that they are ardent supporters of Israel. Nader who has no chance winning the elections as usual, has every chance in taking away many of the lefties from the Democrats especially those who are fed-up with the blind support Israel gets; sometimes at the expense of the interests of the United States of America.

But now that things are getting downright dirty between Hillary and Barak, the latter is having to put huge effort in defending himself with the Jewish voters starting with insisting he is no Muslim and not ending with statements of commitment to Israel’s security and interests; again.

Not only is Barak Obama being attacked in mass emails about him being really a Muslim in disguise as if Islam is a ... [Read More]

By Ramzi E. Khoury

Dubai Tuesday, February 19, 2008

 

It all started a couple of months ago when the sacked Ex-Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh came out claiming that his sacked Foreign Minister Mahmoud Zahhar was planning to kill him. Zahhar in turn came out stating that despite the differences between the two, he will not kill him. To those who have insight into the Zahhar character, it sounded as if the statement was missing the "for now" in its conclusion.

That was a serious affair because Zahhar and the sacked interior minister Said Syam and their likes are the ones who control the Hamas militias and are the characters in Hamas who have been ordering the mayhem, murders and torture, whereas Haniyah is nothing but a sitting duck in that organization with no military power.

The differences between Haniyah and the Zahhar line inside of Hamas are major differences and historic. Haniyah was the office manager of the late leader of the organization Sheikh Ahmad Yassin and his ardent follower. Zahhar, Syam and the current leader of Hamas, Khaled Meshaal, are the hardliners who had an irrevocable dispute with the founder of the organization when he strategically decided to join the Palestine Liberation Organization and achieve national unity in Palestine.

The differences are ideological and therefore strategic. Sheikh Yassin had turned the movement from an international Islamist agenda concerned mainly with Islamist causes such as Jihad in Afghanistan, Chechnya and Bosnia into a nationalistic movement concerned with liberating Palestine first. The liberation of Palestine as understood by those who still see themselves as members of the global Islamist cause is secondary and some would even argue unnecessary on the basis that Israel would not survive "when" the Caliphate state is set up encompassing all Islamic nations and all the way up to China!

These two lines of thought inside of Hama... [Read More]

By Ramzi E. Khoury
Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday, 22 January 2008

The committee investigating what really happened when Israel invaded Lebanon and had its mighty army defeated by Hizbollah in an unprecedented manner is expected to blame the government and the man leading it.
The Winograd report is due on January 30th and Ehud Olmert is got to be dreading that day when his people are reminded again of how their famed army was humiliated by a bunch of militants. The defense minister of the time Peretz is out of office now and Olmert gets the rap this time all alone.
Last time the government was criticized about the offensive and what supposedly caused the humiliating defeat, even the closest in his own party such as Tzipi Livny, called for his resignation.
But last time Olmert was in a situation in which he had lost the meaning of his own political existence and his party’s. He was declared by all polls as the least popular premiere in the history of Israel and it made sense: the reason for Kadima’s creation, Ariel sharon’s unilateral withdrawal project - that was dubbed a middle of the ground solution between what Labor wants and what Likud wants - had failed. Olmert went after Hizbollah in Lebanon and the result was devastating for Israel. Last time Olmert was empty handed.
When a man is standing with a small fire beneath his feet, there is always that someone who will run with all his might and force carrying a can of gasoline to poor on the fire. Hassan Nasrallah wasted no time to pre-empt the Winograd report by going out in person, a rare event that says he does not fear Olmert’s promises to kill him, to deliver a public speech in which he declared: guess what? We have Israeli soldiers’ body parts here, not just the two captives Olmert hasn’t managed to release yet.
Nasrallah’s gasoline turned the fire ablaze in Israel and the media there isn’t yet finished with the Nasrallah ki... [Read More]

Ramzi E. Khoury
Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday, 15 January 2008

According to Israeli and American officials when George Bush was in Israel a few days ago he made it clear in his closed-door meetings with Ehud Olmert that the US wants all building of settlements in the West Bank and Jerusalem stopped until peace negotiations determine the borders of the two states.
It seems he must have specifically remembered the ask he made of Ehud Olmert a while back to dismantle the illegal “outposts” scattered all over and which he had asked Ariel Sharon before in a public letter. Olmert had promised to do so, it seems, but did nothing about it.
Bush moved on with his long-awaited tour of the Arabian Gulf and Olmert went out to declare that the fact the “outposts” remain in place is a “disgrace.” Olmert’s disgrace is evident in regards to these enclaves of ultra-radical settlers who take it upon themselves to steal land and build their “outposts” amidst the Palestinians, armed to the hilt, without any intervention from the authorities. It is his disgrace because he let it happen if not encouraged it.
But his disgrace is compounded when it comes to the government doing it at a much larger scale and describing it as legal. Just as Bush was on his way and as if racing against time, Olmert resumes the ongoing building of settlements that unlike the “outposts” are very difficult to remove.
Construction has just started on 60 new units in Jerusalem’s Ras el Amoud at the infamous settlement of Hazeitim that has been protested by the international community since 1997; to no avail. This terrible settlement must not be allowed to grow not only because of it being built on Arab Jerusalem land and therefore jeopardizes peace possibilities, but also because it jeopardizes a badly needed Palestinian safe passage between the West Bank and Al Aqsa Mosque.
Olmert has also given the green l... [Read More]

By Ramzi E. Khoury
Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday, 09 January 2008

Turnout at the primaries is great, not only on the Democrat side, but also Republican. From the outset, this American election is one of the greatest we have seen and may prove to be the greatest of all, not only because of the large numbers of voters but also the popular resolve that drove the masses out so early in the process. The American people are no longer disengaged.
This is the case because the vast majority of Americans are no longer scared of a possible repeat of 9/11 as much as they are rightfully terrified of what the USA has become on the inside front and its terrible standing amongst most other nations.
Is there a Democrat whose platform is not based on change before any other issue? Whether Barak, Hillary or John makes it to the Presidential elections and beyond there will be change in Washington D.C.
Republican Rudolf Giuliani is not about change and he surely wasn’t betting on the first two caucuses but the terrible results are nevertheless a clear message: you may as well pack it up and head back to New York than waste more big money on a big-time failed project.
Now the Republican Mike Huckabee who won Iowa, did okay in New Hampshire and stands to do better in South Carolina is all for change. Wasn’t that overjoyed man standing behind him during his victory speech in Iowa non-other than the self-declared bigot Chuck Norris? Has chuck repented his racism at the hands of the evangelical minister who wants to preach right out of the White House?  Evangelists repent a lot in their course of life; especially their leaders who seem to sin more so than others. Huckabee, for example, has repented his campaign for weight loss and went public inaugurating a buffalo burger that was called after him. Joy to the world, a new burger is born.
Good news for Chuck; he can enjoy the burger even after his buddy doesn’t make it to the Whit... [Read More]

By Ramzi E. Khoury
Kuala Lumpur – 25 December 2007-12-15

When the achievement one is striving for is not about personal popularity, a conflict between what needs to be done and what the public perceives to be right could result in a person declared a public enemy.
Today, there is hardly an executive Palestinian who hasn’t been described as “traitor” or to say the least a sell-out, by some party here or there. As sad as it is, funny how a Palestinian leader needs to be killed by the enemy before the general public exonerates him of all the titles it bestowed on him and remembers him in opposite terms starting with “martyr” and not ending with “how can we replace him?”
Only those who hang in their bunkers sending out revolutionary statements for public consumption with no intention of achieving results on the ground any time soon are the ones who remain publicly “clean.”
In the early eighties when I suddenly found myself a spokesperson of the PLO in London, they gave me a small office inside the PLO mission from which we published a newsletter, sent statements to the media and did whatever we could to reach out to the British public opinion. It was a full time job that included a wide range of action from the prestigious act of delivering speeches before unions and political parties to the humble acts of scheming, organizing demonstrations and lobbying for resolutions in our favour.
The ANC of Nelson Mandela was doing very well all over the world and despite the pro-apartheid regime positions of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher public opinion in the USA and UK was dramatically shifting in favour of the oppressed there. Most of Europe was all for economic sanctions of the South African Apartheid regime and despite the rejection of the UK and USA leaders it seemed inevitable that it would happen because in western democracies the public at the end could prevail.
The... [Read More]

By Ramzi E Khoury
Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday, 18 December 2007


In the early eighties we had the British lefties pretty much behind us including the mainstream British Communist Party that disagreed with the PLO’s armed struggle and military operations, in line with the Israeli Communist Party (Rakah) and the Palestinian Communist Party, but they supported the cause of Palestine.
It was very easy for me to work with communists and at the outset, as a spokesperson of the PLO in London, I became a hit with the radical communists hanging around on the fringe of British politics. Standing ovations galore, there was nothing more egoistic and seemingly successful than making a fiery speech before Vanessa Redgrave’s Trotskyite party which ardently supported Fateh. They had an interesting political agenda: the Arab masses in Egypt would soon heed the call to erupt and they will liberate Palestine; meanwhile Fateh should hit hard to pave the road. If Vanessa hadn’t been a top-notch actress with a great following, the party would have been a quarter of its size; not that it was large at all!
Or the Maoists who would give me a standing ovation for an obscure poem I would come up with on the fly and which my audience didn’t really understand, nor did I, only it included key sentences such as “our blood spilt is not in vain,” or keywords such as monster, darkness and of course the light.
It didn’t take a genius to figure out that such success is worth nothing in the scheme of things. Those tiny fringe groups supported us whether Ramzi Khoury made a speech or not. They had no chance of winning any elections nor were they able to move any masses in England mind you in Egypt!
The most interesting supporters for someone who dropped into public politics from the world of dogma were the Israeli and Jewish supporters. A revealing encounter was with an Israeli communist woman, Hadva, pronounced Khadva. I h... [Read More]