Monday, 10 July 2006 - 12:34 PM BST

Oh dear. I suspect David and "Iraq the Model" have been fooled by some very clumsy Zionist propaganda posted on the BBC site.

Monday, 10 July 2006 - 3:27 PM BST

"Of course there is no proof." you say, before diving into the deep end with claims of 'zionist propganda'. It's possible that Mossad wrote messages in arabic on a BBC forum I suppose. But then you've got to believe that they did it in order that it would be picked up by some obscure arab website that hardly anyone except me reads - with the intention no doubt that it would appear on Sleepless in Fulham - that well known global collosus of political influence. Alas, much as I'd like to be part of some Zionist black ops masterplan, I doubt it very much.

Back in the real world for one moment, isn't it a bit more likely that these Iraqi readers are reacting to HAMAS's expression of sorrow for the death of Zarqawi? The Iraqis have seen first hand who's been the cause of misery in their land. Israel's done nothing to hurt them. But neighbouring Jihadis have.

If you want to argue that Mossad is behind all of this, can you explain why Mossad only wrote pro-Israel sentiments under Iraqi names and not under Egyptian ones?

If you've never met an arab who's sympathetic to Israel, perhaps you should come to my house and meet the Yemeni shopkeep across the road from me.

DY

Monday, 10 July 2006 - 6:05 PM BST

Yeah Roger. It was clearly Mossad what done it.

 You fucking idiot.

Monday, 10 July 2006 - 6:55 PM BST

Well to be fair, it was me who mentioned Mossad. Roger blamed 'the Leon Uris school of Zionist propaganda'. Of course it's perfectly possible that some of this school's graduates did go into Mossad upon graduation.

Later today I'm going to dig up an old newspaper column by Robert Fisk (!!) which clearly shows that some Palestinians have gone to Iraq to be suicide bombers. The family of one intereviewed by Fisk display open hostility to the Shiite majority in Iraq. Is it so far fetched to suggest that the Iraqis have noticed this and are sickened by the Palestinians because of this?

I don't think so. But that's because I don't see Zionist conspiracies everywhere.

DY

Tuesday, 11 July 2006 - 1:12 AM BST

Two minor points -

1)  The print version of the newspaper, from which I manually retyped key quotes before realising that the piece was available online,  does not have the words '- like thousands of Iraqis Sunnis -' interopolated in the sentence about Maher Oweydah's lack of sympathy for Iraqi Shiites.

2) In using a quote from Fisk, I'm applying the idea of 'evidence against interest'. In this case I mean that when Fisk casts Palestinians in an unsympathetic light, it's more meaningful than when a Zionist Israeli does so.

DY

Wednesday, 12 July 2006 - 9:47 AM BST

I'd be very greatful if people DID NOT put words in my mouth.

I stand by what I wrote:

in 24 years of studying, visiting and meeting people from all over the Middle East, I've only ever come across such stuff on extremist American web-sites and in some of the really clumsy passages from novels like Exodus and The Hadj.

But since I'm not making myself clear enough, let me try again. Supporters of Israel, mainly the extreme right-wing American variety, sometimes pretend to be Arabs in order to make their arguments more powerful. An example of someone who's been caught doing this in the past is Prof Steve Plaut. 

I *think* but cannot of course prove that is what happened at the BBC website.

The idea that Mossad or any other Israeli government agency would get involved in such antics is ridiculous.

As for Arabs that do support Israel, I'm sure there are a few, just as during the Cold War there were people in Eastern Europe who supported communism. But they are part of a small minority, and I personally have never met one.

Friday, 14 July 2006 - 2:14 AM BST

I appreciate that you have 24 yrs of experience in this matter, Roger, but the point of the post is that things have changed in the last few years. So it's only the last, say, three years at most that are relevant. I dug up what Fisk had to say, because I believe it shows that Palestinians and Iraqi Shia don't necessarily see eye-to-eye any more. If Palestinians can be so dismissive of Iraqi Shia, I see no reason why the reverse wouldn't be the case by now. They have seen the dark side of the Palestinians up close. It's no longer something abstract.

Here's an illustration by example - I have a friend who's half Lebanese (Greek Christian). He foams at the mouth at the mention of Zionists and Neo-cons ("I prey for their deaths" he once told me). But he's not always that keen on Palestinians - he blames them for causing great damage to his country and throwing their weight about during the civil war. Incidentally, I wrote to him today and here's what he had to say -

 Me to him:

"I see that Beirut airport has been bombed and a road leading to the airport bombed too. What happens next? Can Hezbollah be contained?"

=========================================== 

Note the line:

as long as Lebanon is weak, than the chances of enforcing the nationalisation of the Palestinian refugees within Lebanon is greater. And everyone, bar the Lebanese, wants this.