Working for Middle East airlines?

Note that everything you see in the boxes is a requirement. No lie.

Actual Change?

Although this is only a rumor, I'm putting it up anyway. I have my doubts on whether there would be an actual NATO deployment into Palestine but I think it would be better. Even though it looks like trading one occupation for another, I'm sure it would take a less generous view towards settlements than the Israeli gov't even though the U.S. is dominated by the Likud party. Also, it would be a good way to get the American gov't directly involved and finally beat American liberals over the head with the cognitive dissonance many displayed over being against the Iraqi occupation but supporting the occupation of Palestine. Put simply those people hate America. The good part about NATO (as oppose to a purely American force) is that there is involvement by the European countries which is more supportive of Palestine than the U.S. It may only be a slight step, but I think this would be a step for the better.

Not what I expected from Haaretz...

For anyone who thought Haaretz can't deliver good coverage of anything outside Israel and Palestine, check this out.

Sweet sounds of blowback...

I was surprised this article appeared on CNN.

I honestly didn't know that this was done by an Israeli film maker. It looks like the Clarion Fund didn't anticipate that the spotlight might start to be shined on them and their secret dealings. I'm not sure if the organization's funding is really coming from Aish Hatorah, but the people who work for the Clarion Fund are or were employees of Aish Hatorah. The Clarion Fund is even based at the same address as Aish Hatorah (the New York branch). I think there is a very good case that the Clarion Fund should lose its tax exempt status for electioneering and that it should be investigated if the Clarion Fund is a foreign supported entity with the intent on influencing the U.S. election.

Shu?!?!?

If anyone can explain what is happening in this picture on the Lebanese Internal Security Forces website I would really like to know.

If you don't know Arabic DON'T F*%$IN USE IT!

One of the things I that I think will be missed from the Biden-Palin debate is this gem by Biden "There have been 7,000 madrassas build along [the Pakistani] border, we should be building schools to compete for those hearts and minds." Oh really? Because the word Madrassa literally means school. It can be an Islamic school but it doesn't have to be. You can have an Islamic Madrassa or you can have a public Madrassa. So Biden's quote translates basically to this "There have been 7000 schools built along that border, we should be building schools to compete for those hearts and minds." Speaking of consistency, I'm waiting for the Stop the Madrassa coalition to fulfill its promise and shut down every school as its name suggests. Maybe while we are at it we should shut down all Christians, Jewish, and Islamic schools to stop the preaching of religions.

Of course to be fair Biden isn't the only one who does it. Ever since September 11th, we've seen commentators use Arabic words like "Shahid" or "Jihad" but rarely other Arabic words like "salaam"(peace) or "Zakat" (purification or growth, usually in reference to alms giving). I wonder what the point of using Arabic words have been aside from making Arabs out to be evil and inhuman. People need to either learn the language or stop using the words.

a cultural challenge to psychologists

I was recently reading a post about domestic violence in Syria and the article it links caught my eye. The article states,

"Muna Al Assad, a lawyer volunteering at Good Shepherd, says its counseling--for both Muslim and Christian women--often focuses on reconciliation because divorce has such negative consequences in Syrian society. Few battered women, she said, choose to take their cases to court.

"Even if the woman considered going to the legal system, where she might get partial fairness, people around her will resent her if she is strong enough to do it," Al Assad says. "They will outcast her because normally the person who committed the violence is her husband, father or brother."

Al Assad has worked on 13 domestic violence cases in 17 months. Of these, only one resulted in divorce. In that case the victim's family supported her."

Women's shelters in the States often focus on empowering the victim to leave the abuser but in this case it seems that the situation would render that approach ineffective. On the other hand, I could not imagine anyone who handles these cases ever recommending that the victim returns to the abuser to try to reconcile with them. Although I'm sure there are plenty of psychologists here in the States who would love for nothing more to go to Syria and impose American methods for dealing with domestic violence, I'm sure that that would cause more harm than good in the end as it sometimes does in situations when help is forced on people whether they ask for it or not.

So are there any alternative ways to deal with this? Or is this another situation where only two mutually-exclusive choices exist (i.e. American methods or Syrian methods)? I've thought about it a lot but I'm just not sure. What do you think?