1-Feb-13: Quote of the week: A moment of moral clarity in the UK parliament

Galloway in Gaza, with arch terrorist Ismail Haniyeh, 2010 [Image Source]

Scene from the British parliament at Westminister on Wednesday [YouTube captured it here, and Algemeiner wrote it up here].

George Galloway was expelled from the Labor Party in 2003 for bringing it into disrepute. He notoriously honored the despot Saddam Hussein in a 1994 speech that ended with this formulation: "Sir, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability".

On Wednesday in Parliament, as the member for Bradford West for the bizarrely-named Respect Party, he put a question/comment to the prime minister, requiring that the latter adumbrate the differences between one brand of "hand-chopping, throat-cutting" terrorist of the kind to be found in Mali and some other sort of jihadist. (For the record, Galloway is no stranger to speaking publicly about terrorists; he has no difficulty praising them lavishly.)

With barely a moment's hesitation, UK prime minister David Cameron rose to his feet with this first-class put-down:

“Some things come and go, but there is one thing that is certain: Wherever there is a brutal Arab dictator in the world, he’ll have the support of the honorable gentleman.”

To illustrate the point in a very small way, recall that the "honorable gentleman" was said (by the Times of London in August 2012) to "earn almost £80,000 a year from a new Lebanese TV station accused of having links to Syria and Iran... [Galloway] recently began presenting a show on al-Mayadeen. The Arabic-language station, launched in June, presents itself as a counterweight to channels such as the Qatari-funded al-Jazeera, which it sees as biased against Syria and its allies."

31-Jan-13: UAE's foreign ministry is "closely following" Prof. Karabus' nightmare

A question:

Have you noticed how it is that when you personally know something about an event or a person, and then that event or person is written up in a newspaper article or a TV program, and you read it or watch it, and you sit there pretty much amazed that the people at the newspaper or TV program have misconstrued or completely misrepresented the facts and turned the thing that you know entirely on its head and gotten really important parts wrong or failed to say things that are so important that without telling them the whole narrative makes no sense?

Yes, so have we. Again and again.

Why do we ask?

First, because we know from checking our visitors' log that there are many South Africans (but not so many from Dubai and Abu Dhabi) who have been reading our blog in recent weeks to get updated on the scandalous way in which the distinguished paediatric oncologist, Prof. Cyril Karabus from Capetown, is being treated by the justice and law enforcement officials in the United Arab Emirates where he has been held prisoner since August.

And since they (and our regular readers) know something about the outrageous treatment to which this frail 78 year old with a decades-long history of saving children's lives has been subjected, we want them to see the way in which the UAE's government - in perhaps the first public indication that it holds a viewpoint on the Karabus scandal - recounts what has been happening.

So here's our point.

If you go to the website of the foreign ministry of the United Arab Emirates right now [here it is], you will see the following report which appears, as well, on the ministry's home page as part of a series of revolving stories right at the top. (In other words, for some reason they really want people to know what we are about to show you.)

Here's the full and unedited text:

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is closely following the case of the South African oncologist | 30 January 2013 | The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is closely following the case of Professor Cyril Karabus, the South African oncologist accused of causing a young girl’s death by failing to give her a blood transfusion whilst undergoing treatment at Sheikh Khalifa Medical City.
Professor Karabus is also accused of forging a medical report. Professor Karabus was originally tried in absentia in 2004 and found guilty.
Following his arrest that original ruling was overturned in order that he stand trial in person.

Seems like a fair enough representation of reality, right?

No, it's not.

The people at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs who are closely following this could have mentioned but did not that Prof. Karabus had never been informed of any criminal charges laid against him, had therefore never been given an opportunity to defend his good name and was never informed that a UAE sharia court had  convicted him on charges of forgery (forgery!) and offences connected with the death of a three-year-old terminally ill patient from Yemen back in the year 2000.

Flying back home to South Africa after his son's wedding in Canada in August 2013, he was taken from the transit lounge at Dubai airport by UAE police to a notorious prison and locked up there for eight weeks. He made multiple applications for bail and was refused multiple times until it was granted eight weeks after his arrest. His passport remains with the law enforcement officials of the UAE so that they can ensure the pensioner with a heart pacemaker cannot easily flee.

He remains a prisoner of the UAE until today. The court that has control of his criminal trial has adjourned the matter 16 times so far. Instead of letting him go home on the basis that the prosecution has been completely unable to prove its case against him or show him the medical file on the basis of which the charges were presented, he was informed two days ago [see our report] that this Kafkaesque nightmare goes on, and the next hearing,  postponed yet again, is set for February 27.

The details of this intersection between a decent and heroic man's life and the law and order system of the United Arab Emirates could - and surely will - fill books, magazine articles and television programs once he is out and free.

Meanwhile, even before he is set free, we feel a moral obligation to highlight several aspects of this shocking affair in the hope that there will be an uproar against the people responsible.

1. The British Medical Association published an angry letter of protest dated December 14, 2012 and sent to the Minister of Justice in Abu Dhabi. The full text is here. It ends with this demand: "As the prosecution is unable to present any substantive evidence against Prof Karabus, he should be released from effective detention immediately and all charges dropped. In our view continuing effectively to detain Prof Karabus in these circumstances amounts to a fundamental violation of Prof Karabus’ human rights, and any trial in these circumstances will fail to meet international standards of fairness and would lead to widespread condemnation."
2. A published advice [here] from the South African Medical Association (SAMA) reminds medical professionals that the UAE is 'heavily dependent' on foreign doctors to support its healthcare system. The ongoing incarceration of the distinguished Prof. Karabus is a reminder to its members to 'think carefully' before working in the UAE. SAMA suggested a global professional boycott of countries "which treat health professionals in such a manner". 
3. Qantas, Australia's international airline, is about to merge a significant part of its global operations with Emirates, a UAE airline. Australians transiting through Dubai in the future, en route to Europe and London ought to know something about the risks they face, as exemplified by the nightmare inflicted on Prof. Karabus. If it can happen to a man in his late seventies in poor health and with his proud achievements, it can certainly happen to the rest of us.
4. As we mentioned in a previous posting, a South African publication called The Daily Maverick reported back in November that the Karabus family had asked Emirates, the UAE airline, to consider funding tickets for them to travel to Prof. Karabus in Abu Dhabi as a goodwill gesture and to make it a little easier for them to give him the support he needs. Emirates declined, saying: “This is a legal issue being dealt with by the relevant authorities and does not involve Emirates.” It's a point that Qantas passengers and management might want to take on board and ponder.

If anyone from, or on behalf of, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the United Arab Emirates has looked closely into these aspects too, and has an opinion they are willing to share with us, we will be glad to provide them with a global platform right here.

Some of our previous posts about this painful subject for your further reading:

26-Sep-12: Dubai, Dubai, Dubai

15-Oct-12: Back to Dubai: Australian travelers might want to factor this report into their plans

21-Oct-12: Update on Prof. Cyril Karabus and his ongoing nightmare in United Arab Emirates

5-Nov-12: Travel update: Additional things you might want to know about transiting through Dubai

13-Dec-12: Kafka would certainly be proud: Update on the doctor arrested at Dubai airport

25-Dec-12: The Emirates scandal: the missing evidence turns up

1-Jan-13: Prof. Cyril Karabus faces his thirteenth hearing in a United Arab Emirates court tomorrow

2-Jan-13: For readers concerned with what is still being done to a distinguished healer of children with cancer

7-Jan-13 [UPDATED]: Karabus affair: UAE attorney-general "failed to turn up"

29-Jan-13: A development in the scandalous UAE 'prosecution' of Prof. Karabus

29-Jan-13: UAE "Justice" officials fiddle: The scandalous treatment of Prof. Karabus goes on and on

30-Jan-13: Drawing the line between regional warfare and mass-destruction-by-terrorism in Syria

Better to show some kind of red line here [Image Source] than to reach for illustrations of what nerve gas does to people. Such pictures do exist online; many of them are from Syria.

The picture is not clear yet about what happened, and has been happening, up north today, but there's plenty of speculation around. 

We posted earlier about the reports of Israel having carried out some attacks on something on the ground near Syria's Lebanese border. When one of the parties makes an official statement, we may have a basis for being better informed. So far there is mainly silence from everyone except the news reporting media.

There's a background: Israeli officials have been warning for months, using language that has been growing clearer and more explicit, that any transfer of Syria’s advanced weapons, chemical and biological weapons in particular, to terrorist organizations will just not be tolerated. Syria's government is falling apart in front of the world's cameras, but still possesses the largest arsenal of 'non-conventional' weapons on the globe. The air strike this morning may indicate (according to this source) that the Assad regime is testing Israel's resolve on its red line.

Much earlier in the day today (Wednesday) in Jerusalem, a well-informed Israeli official, Brig. Gen. (Ret.) Amnon Sofrin addressed journalists about where Israel's red line is drawn. Sofrin established - and between 2000 and 2003 led - the IDF's combat intelligence corps. Few media experts will have his authority in interpreting what's on the mind of Israeli security officials. Some of his points:

• For Israel, the red line is crossed with the transfer of any of Syrian non-conventional weapons to Hezbollah.
• Non-conventional weapons? There's Sarin, an extremely potent nerve gas; that's the one that worries him less. The other is VX. Wikipedia calls it "an extremely toxic substance that has no known uses except in chemical warfare as a nerve agent. As a chemical weapon, it is classified as a weapon of mass destruction by the United Nations in UN Resolution 687. The production and stockpiling of VX was outlawed by the Chemical Weapons Convention of 1993". For a sense of their devastating effects, take a look a recent piece in, of all places, New Yorker: "The Case of Agent 15: Did Syria Use a Nerve Agent?"
• Assad, who controls "hundreds of warheads", might decide that his regime's days are running out and think, as Sofrin put it: "If I go down and I leave my chair, at least one of the heritage I will leave will be that Hezbollah will have capability to hit Israel very bad. Is it something that you can rule out? I can't."

According to Sofrin, an Israeli failure to prevent such a Syrian transfer to Hezbollah would leave Israel in the very difficult position of having to

"build up a new equation of deterrence against Hezbollah and to make it clear to Hezbollah that if you are going to make any attempt to even think about using it, the price will be very, very high and very painful."

Israel remains conscious of the burdens it carries. The Australian newspaper quotes Sofrin saying this morning that

Israel was unlikely to carry out air strikes on chemical weapons stocks because of the environmental risks. "When you go and attack a... chemical weapons depot, you're going to do unwarranted damage, because every part will leak out and can cause damage to many residents... But if you know of a convoy leading these kind of (chemical) weapon systems from Syria to Lebanon, you can send a unit to the proper place and try to halt it" on the ground.

Those comments were made, as we noted above, before today's reports of an air attack by the IDF emerged. But they came after a series of reports like one from the New York Times ["Hints of Syrian Chemical Push Set Off Global Effort to Stop It"] three weeks ago which spoke of Syrian troops appearing to be mixing chemicals - probably Sarin - at two storage sites and filling dozens of 500-pounds bombs that could be loaded on airplanes and be "airborne in less than two hours".

30-Jan-13: AFP says "Israeli air force blew up convoy near Syria/Lebanon border"

From SKY News in the last few minutes (it's now 3:15 pm Wednesday)

Israel Strikes Convoy On Syria-Lebanon Border: Israel has struck a weapons convoy on border of Syria and Lebanon, according to security sources. Israeli jets carried out the strike overnight on the convoy which was said to be coming from Syria, and was in the area of the Lebanon-Syria border. An unnamed secuity source told the AFP news wire: "The Israeli air force blew up a convoy which had just crossed the border from Syria into Lebanon." The source did not give a precise location for the attack or saying what the convoy was carrying. An Israeli military spokeswoman declined to comment on the report.

Meanwhile the Lebanese say they know nothing about any of this. The Daily Star published in Beirut, posted a report an hour ago (2:45 pm Wednesday) saying 

"Lebanese security sources denied knowledge Wednesday of an Israeli strike on Lebanese territory after reports said Israeli jets hits targets on the border with Syria. Lebanese Army sources told The Daily Star that there was no such activity inside Lebanon, although the military has registered increased violations of Lebanese airspace by Israeli jets since Friday of last week. In a statement, the Army said four Israeli warplanes violated Lebanon’s airspace at 2 a.m. Wednesday and conducted aerial maneuvers above various Lebanese areas for approximately six hours. The military also said that it registered two violations on separate occasions on Tuesday by eight Israeli warplanes."

30-Jan-13: Were there air attacks on the Syria/Lebanon border overnight?

Sign on the Beirut to Damascus highway, some kilometres
north of the border: a 2007 snap [Image Source]

Reuters put out a report in the past hour saying Israeli forces attacked a target on the Syrian-Lebanese border overnight, quoting a western diplomat and a security source who declined to be named.

Reuters' sources

"had no further information about what might have been hit or where precisely the attack happened" owing to the "sensitivity of the issue". 

Reuters says this is happening at a time of "growing concern in the Jewish state over the fate of Syrian chemical and conventional weapons".

It also says the Lebanese army reported a heavy presence of Israeli jets over its territory throughout Tuesday/Wednesday night. Israeli sources, according to Reuters, said Tuesday that Syria’s advanced conventional weapons would represent as much of a threat to Israel as its chemical arms should they fall into the hands of Syrian rebel forces or Hezbollah guerrillas based in Lebanon.

The IDF's response: “We do not comment on reports of this kind.”

The Jerusalem Post has a similar report, quoting a western diplomat (as Reuters did) and three regional security sources. It says Lebanon reported three overflights by Israel in its airspace during the night. The Western diplomat , asked about the strike, said "something has happened", without elaborating.

Stay tuned.

30-Jan-13: In fighting terrorism, fear cannot be a substitute for moral clarity: Two political figures speak from personal experiences of terror

Trimble and Aznar [Image Source]

We posted here yesterday ["29-Jan-13: What their view on Hezbollah tells us about Europe's counter-terrorism strategy"] about the European Union's pusillanimous stance on banning one of the world's most dangerous and active terror organizations, Hezbollah.

The Times of London has a leading op ed column today written by two former political figures who have deep first-hand experience of terrorism. In their essay, entitled "Don’t mince words. Hezbollah are terrorists", José María Aznar who was was prime minister of Spain from 1996 until a few days after the Madrid railway massacre of 2004, and Lord Trimble, First Minister of Northern Ireland between 1998 and 2002 and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate in 1998, begin with the antithesis to yesterday's Guardian op ed about which we blogged last night: "29-Jan-13: Is the threat of terrorism greater now, or less?". They open with these words:

Jihadi terrorism is still alive and, as events in Mali and Algeria show us, poses a direct threat to us. The turmoil in North Africa reminds us that jihadism has no boundaries and that when confronting terrorism it is always better to prevent it rather than deal with its consequences. 

As we noted yesterday, the EU prefers not to face the reality of terrorism. Trimble and Aznar point to what is and is not being done about Hezbollah to make their case. About last summer's terrorist bombing in Bulgaria of a bus-load of Israelis, they point out that

despite this atrocity some European governments are not willing to declare Hezbollah a security threat and put it on the EU terrorist list. This refusal is based on a misunderstanding of the nature of the group. Hezbollah is not just a Lebanese militia group and political party. It is the long arm of Iran. From its conception by Tehran in 1982, it has been committed to the revolutionary goals of the international expansion of Shia Islam, as dreamt of by the Ayatollah Khomeini. The fact that it holds seats in the Lebanese Parliament and posts in the Cabinet does not mean that its leaders see themselves as just another Lebanese faction — albeit one that murders its political opponents (a UN tribunal found that the assassination of Rafic Hariri, the Lebanese Prime Minister was a Hezbollah plot). On the contrary Hezbollah has a global vision and reach. It has perpetrated attacks in places as distant as Argentina, Georgia, Israel, Thailand, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, as well as Lebanon. It has been involved in illegal but very lucrative activities in Latin America and West Africa. 

They then address a dimension of this issue that often drives us crazy - the willingness of many to make an artificial distinction between the so-called "military wing" of terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, and their political, charitable and who-knows-what-other front activities. People who think like that, say the authors, are wrong. Hezbollah is a single body and needs to be condemned and blacklisted in all its manifestations:

...Every part plays a role in the overall strategy. The leaders in charge of its hospitals and schools, the military leader and the political representatives all sit together under the secretary-general, Hassan Nasrallah. His deputy, Naim Qassem, was quoted as recently as October, saying: “We don’t have a military wing and a political wing. We don’t have the Party of Allah and the Party of Resistance. These differences do not exist and are rejected.” Hezbollah is committed to violent revolution. It sees itself as being in total confrontation with our way of life. The idea that engaging Hezbollah through the Lebanese political process and institutions would moderate it has proved to be a dangerous illusion. And today it is actively intervening in Syria on behalf of Bashar Assad; we will know soon about the atrocities conducted by its militants there... We know from our own experience in Spain and Northern Ireland that terrorism cannot be defeated unless you tackle all the tentacles that serve the purposes of the terrorists, and that includes the political and financial front organisations. Make no mistake — terrorist groups use all the means at their disposal to survive, flourish and achieve their plans.

About the claim by certain European governments that this is somehow not the right time to put Hezbollah on the EU terrorist list, they correctly ask:

But what more is needed to let us take such a decision? Official bodies, private research, parliamentary inquiries, one after another, have revealed the terrorist connections.

Addressing one of the reasons European states have held back from condemning Hezbollah, they write

We understand the caution of nations that have citizens living in Lebanon or peacekeeping troops deployed there. But fear cannot be a substitute for moral clarity. We need to remember that Unifil II (United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon) was deployed in 2006 to disarm Hezbollah, not to become its hostage... Hezbollah is already present and active on European soil; its illegal activities and networks cover the continent. It has shown that it is willing to strike in Europe. That is why European governments must move now to stigmatise Hezbollah and its activities, vision and goals.

What more must happen before that view is heard and comprehended?

29-Jan-13: Is the threat of terrorism greater now, or less?

[Image Source]

There's a major piece of analysis in today's The Guardian that asks a question in order to answer it. The question is in the title: "Al-Qaida: how great is the terrorism threat to the west now?" Jason Burke, who covers South Asia for the Guardian the Observer, takes his readers on a grand tour of Al Qaida and its history, expands it to a kind of overview of Islamist and Islamic terrorism, and works his way up to a conclusion. Towards the end of his essay he writes:

...If you take the fighting in Mali and the attack on the refinery, and add it to a list of all the incidents occurring around the globe involving extremist Islamist violence, it is undoubtedly a frightening picture. In the last few days there were arrests in the Philippines, anti-terrorist operations in Indonesia, deaths in Pakistan (due to infighting between extremist groups), air raids in Afghanistan on suspected al-Qaida bases, battles in the Yemen, shootings and executions in Iraq following the release of a video showing brutal executions, reports of trials in the UK and Germany as well as fighting in Mali. But does this all add up to al-Qaida 3.0, more dangerous than ever before?  [more]

This he seems to answer in the negative. We see several problems with his thesis.

• Terrorism is plainly not the same thing as Al Qaida and vice versa. Whatever Al Qaida is, whether a specific group or a more generalized aspiration, terrorism has multiple expressions. Burke writes that Al Qaida's leadership has been "hollowed out" by drone strikes and other challenges. Then he observes that from its high point "around 2004 or 2005", the wave of extremism has been receding as the central leadership of al-Qaida "has suffered blow after blow". Bin Laden was killed and Ayman al-Zawahiri - though effective, dedicated and an experienced organiser, "lacks Bin Laden's charisma". But plainly, the decline in Al Qaida's fortunes, whether or not it's factually correct, is no indicator of terrorism being in decline. 
• Every attempt by al-Qaida to win genuine popular support has failed, he says, quoting Iraq, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia as examples. And "when communities have direct experience of extremist violence or rule", their support for Al-Qaida falls. Then his trump card: "Bin Laden was apparently thinking of relaunching the group under a new name", leaving us to wonder whether terrorists are like the marketers of bottled tea beverages. If terrorism and/or Al-Qaida are in decline, as Burke says, will we know it from public opinion polls?
• He saves his trump card for the end of the essay. "There's a simple test," he says, referring to the danger we face and whether it's greater or lesser than before. "Think back to those dark days of 2004 or 2005 and how much closer the violence seemed. Were you more frightened then, or now? The aim of terrorism is to inspire irrational fear, to terrorise. Few are as fearful today as they were back then. So that means there are two possibilities: we are wrong, ignorant or misinformed, and should be much more worried than we are; or our instincts are right, and those responsible for the violence are as far from posing an existential threat as they have ever been." To which we say: How frightened were Americans on September 10, 2001, the day before 9/11? How close did the violence seem to the citizens of Madrid on March 9, 2004? Or to the residents of Beslan in August of the same year?

We think Burke's article is dangerously off-target. Even more alarming is the tone of the many responses that are published on the Guardian website: Al-Qaida was never really a threat; the real threat is the Americans or the pompous Western politicians or religion in general or ourselves.

It's a familiar pattern of thinking among the kind of reader who is drawn to the Guardian but no less depressing for that and a kind of validation for the theory of cognitive warfare. It's a great pity that people tend towards accepting the existential reality of terrorism in its various manifestations more readily when they have been personally exposed to it, or suffered its consequences. 

It's even more regrettable that a willingness to make the sacrifices necessary to protect your own society (and family and self) also seems to stem - broadly speaking - from having been, yourself, touched by the tentacles of terrorism and the forces of hatred that propel it. It would be better for everyone if we could simply skip the part where first you pay the price and then you discover that the danger was there all along and it's not going away.

29-Jan-13: Tapuah Junction again

There was an IDF intercept yesterday at Tapuah Junction. Terrorists evidently en route to carry out an attack aroused suspicion, and arising from that suspicion they were apprehended by Border Police service personnel. Details at "28-Jan-13: Another timely IDF intercept of mayhem-minded terrorists". Today, there's a terrorist attack in the very same location, Tapuah Junction. The Jerusalem Post has just put up a report headlined "Palestinian stabs Israeli in W. Bank terror attack" in the past hour. What's undisputed is that a 17-year-old boy, Jewish, was stabbed by someone at Tapuah Junction, in the Samaria district. What is going to be disputed is who did it and why. The Post article says Border Police officers saw an Arab man from Ramallah stabbing the youth and stopped him and placed him under arrest. They report that the stabber admitted to them that he was indeed out to hurt someone grievously, and the victim was chosen for the usual reason: being Jewish (that's a literal interpretation). The young victim is being treated at this hour in Beilinson Hospital, part of the Rabin Medical Center in Petah Tikva.

29-Jan-13: UAE "Justice" officials fiddle: The scandalous treatment of Prof. Karabus goes on and on

Sheikh Khalifa Medical Center (now called Sheikh Khalifa Medical City): [Image Source]
Is this where the critically important medical file got "lost"?

Since the post we put up earlier today, there have been further developments today in the scandalous ordeal being inflicted on the distinguished medical figure, Prof. Cyril Karabus. For those new to this, we laid out some of the background in an earlier posting: see "24-Jan-13: Time for the United Arab Emirates to know the world is watching". There is also a useful report in the current issue of the South African Medical Journal.

Here in full is today's update from a UAE-based newspaper called "The National":

UAE medical panel issues response in doctor's manslaughter trial

The National (UAE) | Haneen Dajani | Jan 29, 2013         ABU DHABI The case of the South African doctor accused of the manslaughter of a three-year-old girl more than 10 years ago returned to court today as a medical committee finally issued a response. For months the Criminal Court awaited the response of the specialised committee after Sheikh Khalifa Medical City continually failed to provide the case file of the Yemeni girl who Cyril Karabus, 77, is accused of failing to give a blood transfusion to in 2002. The paediatric oncologist, who denies the charge, has been on bail with his passport confiscated since he was arrested at Dubai airport while travelling with his family. After the Criminal Court all but gave up on witnessing any proceedings earlier this month, it removed the case from the court's roll and bounced it back to prosecutors, who also failed to produce the case file essential for the professor's defence, to either present the missing evidence or dismiss the case. The medical committee's letter to court said it has referred the case to a branch committee, which is currently looking into matters. The case was adjourned until February 27 for the branch committee's report.

Months of unconscionable delay in a matter that screams 'injustice' and the so-called 'specialized medical committee' finally decides... to send the matter to a sub-committee and report back in a month. It's simply unbelievable.

It is also astonishing that Prof. Karabus' plight continues in the way that it has. To say it's a disgrace to the lawyers, justice officials and medical establishment of the United Arab Emirates is to put things far too mildly. But expressing the outrage that is appropriate, given the facts, may cause harm to the innocent defendant and his family.

Prof. Karabus has spent more than five months as a prisoner of the UAE, first for eight long weeks in a notorious prison after he was arrested at the glitzy international transit lounge in Dubai airport in August, and then while "free" on bail minus the passport that was seized from him. Local reports have reported that he was brought before the judge in chains in at least the earlier court sessions.

Not only has there been no trial so far, or even an indication that one is on the way. He has also been the victim of misleading reporting by the UAE media establishment who say - as today's news article above does - that the documents that are missing (the "case file") are "essential for the professor's defence".

A larger version of this image accompanied an earlier post 
of ours that highlights the major role Emirates - meaning
the airline, the place and the statelet - are going
to play in the lives of Australians

We are both lawyers and we think that's a misleading way of looking at it. But you don't have to be possessed of a legal education to know that a criminal prosecution cannot proceed if the evidence is "missing".

The UAE authorities have pathetically said for months that sadly they "cannot find" the medical file on the basis of which the criminal case is based. So while Prof. Karabus' UAE defence lawyers might benefit from the "missing file" turning up (reports weeks ago - click for an example - said they already have a copy of the contents and that it confirms his innocence), how can it be that the "justice" officials were not thrown out of the court months ago for (a) arresting a man without evidence to make their case; (b) depriving him of his liberty in a country through which he was transiting as an international passenger of Emirates, the soon-to-be-partner of Qantas; and (c) then failing 16 times (that's the number of "hearings" that have taken place including today's) to show their evidence to the court and to the defence lawyers?

By the way, as we keep asking, is anyone from Qantas paying attention? Are Australian travelers aware of what awaits them when the Qantas/Emirates partnership starts flying? 

An item in the South African Medical Journal quotes an African organization that

expressed ‘astonishment’ that the Emirates airline failed to warn Karabus that he was wanted in the UAE and called on all travellers ‘who share our abhorrence for the UAE’s justice system to stop flying Emirates and to not visit the UAE’.

As we mentioned in a previous posting, a South  African publication called The Daily Maverick reported back in November that the Karabus family had 

asked Emirates if it would consider funding tickets for them to visit Karabus in Abu Dhabi as a goodwill gesture, but it declined. When the Daily Maverick approached Emirates Airline for comment, it was told: “This is a legal issue being dealt with by the relevant authorities and does not involve Emirates.”

That's another little point that Qantas passengers and management might want to take on board.

Though we fully understand the significance of the UAE's phenomenal oil wealth and the massive advertising budgets of Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Emirates Airlines and the UAE, where are the penetrating questions from Australian journalists and media channels? Where are the global human rights lawyers? Where is the outrage? 

29-Jan-13: A development in the scandalous UAE 'prosecution' of Prof. Karabus

The UAE Ministry of Justice website

From a South African news source this morning:

The professor’s Cape Town-based attorney Michael Bagraim said prosecutors indicated they intend dropping the forgery charge. “If one has no hope of a forgery charge, the manslaughter charge has no traction at all because the one flows from the other.” This move has yet to be sanctioned by the judge. The retired paediatric oncologist is facing a charge of manslaughter following the death of a cancer patient he treated at the Sheikh Khalifa Medical Centre in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) over a decade ago. But state officials in Abu Dhabi have been struggling to find the patient's original medical records. Karabus’ case has been in limbo for weeks after an Abu Dhabi judge postponed it indefinitely. But the 77-year-old, who is out on bail, is still not allowed to leave the UAE.

See the most recent of our posts ["24-Jan-13: Time for the United Arab Emirates to know the world is watching"] for the background to this thoroughly disgraceful affair. Beyond that, and until Prof. Karabus has his liberty and passport restored to him, we will refrain from making the kind of comment that this development would normally call for.

By the way, as we keep asking, is anyone from Qantas paying attention?

UPDATE: There's more. See our Tuesday midday report: "29-Jan-13: UAE "Justice" officials fiddle: The scandalous treatment of Prof. Karabus goes on and on"

29-Jan-13: What their view on Hezbollah tells us about Europe's counter-terrorism strategy

The Hezbullah terrorists' customary form of salute will be
familiar to some Europeans, even if its lesson has been forgotten

Watching the self-damaging way politicians and law enforcement officials view terrorism is, for the most part, an immensely frustrating thing.

Hezbollah, as we have noted here numerous times, is banned as a terrorist organization in major countries of the world but not in Europe. See for instance "26-Jan-13: Assessing the threat of Hezbullah's terrorism in North America, and doing something about it", "13-Jan-13: A French contribution to stopping the terrorists", 26-May-11: "Lebanon's terrorist forces have more missiles than most sovereign states"

Now today we the EU's principal counter-terrorism official telling us that Hezbollah might not be banned even if it is proven - as appears to be the case, that it stands behind the terrorist bombing of a busload of Israeli tourists in Bulgaria last summer.

EU official: Hezbollah unlikely to get on terrorism blacklist

EUobserver | 28.01.13...Gilles de Kerchove told EUobserver that Bulgaria's investigation into the incident is likely to be concluded next month... "First, we need to reach conclusions with strong evidence that it was the military wing of Hezbollah [which bombed Burgas]. That's the prerequisite, even in legal terms, but then, as always in the listing process, you need to ask yourself: 'Is this the right thing to do?' ...For Hezbollah, you might ask, given the situation in Lebanon, which is a highly fragile, highly fragmented country, is listing it going to help you achieve what you want? ...There is no automatic listing just because you have been behind a terrorist attack. It's not only the legal requirement that you have to take into consideration, it's also a political assessment of the context and the timing"... There is "no consensus" among EU states on whether listing Hezbollah would be helpful or not.

His politically-fine-tuned voice happens to have been a key one in European circles for some years:

Mr Gilles de KERCHOVE was appointed EU Counter-terrorism Coordinator on 19 September 2007. In this function, Mr Gilles de KERCHOVE will coordinate the work of the Council of the EU in the field of counter-terrorism, maintain an overview of all the instruments at the Union's disposal, closely monitor the implementation of the EU counter-terrorism strategy, fostering better communication between the EU and third Countries and ensure that the Union plays an active role in the fight against terrorism [From the website of the Council of the EU]

The article adds the "political" viewpoint as well. An unnamed EU diplomat is quoted saying:

"It's difficult to say what will happen until Bulgaria files its report. The way these things are phrased could be very important. There could be lots of ifs and maybes or it could contain very concrete elements... Hezbollah plays a very important political role in Lebanon."

So discount the lofty speeches about the urgency of addressing terrorist threats and the risks they pose to civilized society. For the people at Europe's steering wheels, it comes down to politics by other names. 

Two weeks ago we posted here about a French official who reaches for the fig leaf of "the common position of the Council of the European Union" dating back to December 2001. That requires "specific measures to fight against terrorism", including adding new names to the list of proscribed terrorist organizations in the EU, to be based on "a consensus among Member States. This consensus is not currently met”, said the official, not exactly falling on his sword in despair.

It's not as if people don't understand the scale of the threat from Hizbollah. The then-outgoing US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said two years ago that Hezbollah was armed at that time "with more missiles and rockets than most states, possibly armed with chemical or biological warheads". And as we have learned here the hard way [see "30-Jul-06: Neighbourhood Barbarians"], those missiles and rockets are rarely aimed at military targets.

28-Jan-13: Another timely IDF intercept of mayhem-minded terrorists

IDF personnel at Tapuah Junction in 2011 [Image Source]

Seems like yesterday that we were saying how critically important is the ongoing vigilance of the IDF in protecting Israeli civil society from the non-stop assault of jihad-minded Palestinian Arab terrorists with innocent Israeli civilians on their minds.

Actually it was just yesterday: see "27-Jan-13: Terrorists stopped before they can do more serious damage" in which we wrote about an IDF intercept of Fatah terrorists heading for the community of Elon Moreh in the Samarian hills, northeast of Nablus.

Now we hear of another successful IDF intercept. This one happened last night (Sunday). Ben Hartman, writing in the Jerusalem Post, says Border Police prevented a terror attack when they stopped three men from the Balata refugee camp who were traveling through Tapuah Junction, not so far from the scene of yesterday's arrests. Something about these men aroused the suspicion of the service personnel, prompting them to carry out a search of the men and their car. 

The search turned up no fewer than eight pipe bombs, a pistol, and a knife. The bomb squad unit sent sappers to the scene who neutralized the bombs. The three men, who evidently intended to make use of the weapons for purposes that most people can probably guess at, are in custody where it is likely they will remain for some time. 

28-Jan-13: But don't forget the south...

Israel's recently enhanced Sinai border [Image Source]

Israel is focused on the north. But the south keeps coming back to remind us that life is never entirely simple. There was an attempted infiltration of the Israel-Egypt border last night (Sunday) in which gunmen approaching from the Sinai came up to the Israeli border and attempted to get through the fence, according to an IDF report today. Just as this was happening, a vehicle on the Israeli side of the fence drove into the closed military zone that runs along the Israeli side of the border and towards where the men from Sinai seemed to be heading. Soldiers from an IDF patrol called out warnings to all the suspects to stop. Their calls were ignored and in accordance with IDF rules of engagement, they fired into the air. They next opened fire on the vehicle coming from the Israeli side, hitting two people on board and injuring them. The intruders from the Sinai side ran off. It's possible this was "nothing more" than a failed drug-smuggling attempt. But in the circumstances it's easy to understand how the IDF would first treat it as a terror attack and ask questions afterwards. The Jerusalem Post has some additional details.

28-Jan-13: Temperatures are distinctly rising on Israel's Syrian front

IDF soldier standing guard beside an Iron Dome anti-missile battery in Haifa [Image Source]

The November fighting and associated tensions in Israel's south have barely abated. Still, given the nature of the neighbourhood in which we live, quiet is the exception rather than the norm. Several extract-reports below provide a snapshot of aspects of the rising drama on Israel's northern border. 

Two Iron Dome Batteries Deployed in Northern Israel

Yoav Zitun, Ynet | Two Iron Dome batteries have been deployed in northern Israel over the past few days, the IDF said on Sunday. One battery of the missile-defense system was deployed in the Krayot area, while the other was installed in the Galilee region. Additional, fully operational batteries have already been deployed in the Haifa area and in other locations... It remains unclear how long the Iron Dome batteries will remain deployed in the north at a time when Israel is closely monitoring the situation in Syria for fear that its chemical weapons stockpile will be transferred to Hezbollah... Iron Dome systems have already been installed in the south and the Tel Aviv metropolitan area... The IDF is expected to get two additional operational batteries this year. The army's goal is to have 10 Iron Dome batteries within the next few years. [more]

Israel Girds for Attacks as Syria Falls Apart

Jodi Rudoren and Anne Barnard, New York Times January 27, 2013 | Israel deployed at least one Iron Dome missile defense battery in northern Israel on Sunday amid reports of intense security consultations regarding the possibility of Syrian chemical weapons falling into the hands of Islamist rebels or being transferred to Hizbullah. "If there will be a need, we will take action to prevent chemical weapons from being transferred to Islamic terror organizations," Vice Prime Minister Silvan Shalom told Army Radio. "Something is happening for sure," said Ehud Yaari, a senior security analyst with Israel's Channel 2 News. "Even in Israel, which is usually tense...this is exceptional now"... [more]

Report: Syrian Rebels Free 300 from Jail

Reuters, January 26, 2013 | Syrian opposition fighters have freed 300 prisoners from Idlib Central Prison near the border with Turkey and found 30 others shot in the head by their jailers, an opposition activist said on Saturday... Syrian authorities have jailed tens of thousands of people since the start of the uprising against Assad 22 months ago. Most are being held without trial, according to human rights defenders. A large proportion of prisoners are held in underground secret police dungeons and the fate of many is unknown. [more]

More Lebanese Sunnis Crossing into Syria to Aid Rebellion

Babak Dehghanpisheh and Suzan Haidamous, Washington Post - January 26, 2013 | Sunni militants have been flocking from Lebanon to Syria in greater numbers in recent months to join forces with Islamic extremists battling the Syrian government, according to senior Lebanese security officials. The escalating role that the Lebanese fighters are playing in the conflict is a direct result of expanding ties between Sunni religious extremists on both sides of the border and has raised concerns in Lebanon about a renewal of sectarian tensions. [more]

Jordan reportedly beefing up security on border with Syria

Times of Israel - January 28, 2013
Jordan is boosting its military presence along its northern border, sending thousands of soldiers and heavy arms to keep Syria’s civil war from spilling into the Hashemite Kingdom. The move follows similar measures by Turkey and Israel, which both recently placed anti-missile batteries near their borders with the war-torn country amid fears. Thousands of soldiers, backed up by dozens of tanks, armored vehicles and artillery have begun streaming to the Syrian border, a high ranking Jordanian official told Israeli daily Israel Hayom in a report published Monday. [more]

27-Jan-13: Terrorists are stopped before they can do more serious damage

Elon Moreh [Image Source]

For those out there who still believe (a) terror attacks on Israeli civilians are a thing of the past; (b) Mahmoud Abbas and those in his Fatah/PLO/Palestinian Authority circle are moderates; (c) Israel ought to lower its guard and show it believes in peace and understanding with the Palestinian Arabs who, after all, are really just interested in having nice houses, good jobs and a decent education for their children - we have some news.

In a report headed "Fatah terror group notes found on suspects", Yaakov Lappin writing in the Jerusalem Post this afternoon says two Palestinian Arab arrested for throwing firebombs - colloquially Molotov Cocktails - at an IDF position near Hawara, south of Nablus in the Samaria district, were found to be carrying not only explosives - three grenades and three additional fire bombs ready for use.

They also had letters in their possession, signed in the name of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, and claiming responsibility for an attack on the settlement of Elon Moreh, a community located in the Samarian hills, northeast of Nablus. It appears the attack on the community was intended to happen in the very near future and the terrorists were evidently en route to be the ones to carry it out.

The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade is designated as a terrorist group by the governments of the United States,  Canada, Japan, the European Union and Israel. It is a part of Fatah, the organization headed by the aforesaid 'moderate' Mahmoud Abbas, a lifelong denier of the Holocaust who now refers to himself as president of the State of Palestine. He was elected in 2005 to a four year term as president of the PA and is now in year seven of that term, with no plans in sight for an election and few visible signs that anyone in his domain expects them.

The vigilence of Israel's defence forces is critical to preventing more - and more serious - expressions of Palestinian Arab hatred from exacting unbearable damage from Israelis and Israeli society. The relationship between our safety and the actions of Mahmoud Abbas is increasingly seen to be totally misunderstood by those who persist in unjustifiably attaching the term 'moderate' to his name.

27-Jan-13: Developing: Iran, its nuclear plans and the oil industry

Following the revelations made this weekend by an Iranian diplomat who defected to the West and who has blunt things to say about what the regime in Tehran plans to do with nuclear technology, it's hard to ignore an important business story - an exclusive - from Reuters that went out on the news wire on Friday.

First, if you have not yet seen it, please read what the Iranian diplomat, his country's consul in Oslo, disclosed: "27-Jan-13: Tehran insider reveals what the Iranians really mean to do with their nuclear program". With his disturbing disclosures in mind, along with what we know about Iran's deep investments in terrorism ["21-Jul-12: How involved in terror against Israelis and Jews are the Iranians?"], here is what Reuters reported on Friday.

Exclusive: Samsung Total strikes Iran oil deal, lured by cheap fuel - sources

Reuters | Fri, Jan 25 2013South Korea's Samsung Total Petrochemicals Co has revived a contract to buy Iranian oil after a year's hiatus, as thin margins in plastics make the cheap fuel from Iran hard to resist... Samsung Total stopped importing oil from Iran last year as the U.S. and European Union imposed sanctions to halt a nuclear program the West suspects Iran may be using to develop arms. Tehran denies this. To comply with U.S. sanctions, importing countries are required to reduce purchases of Iranian oil.
Co-owner Total also stopped buying Iranian oil for its refineries to comply with EU sanctions last year...
Stringent U.S. and European sanctions aimed at reducing Iran's oil income and forcing Tehran to curb its nuclear program have made shipping and paying for the oil hard, halving the Islamic Republic's crude exports. The deal is a rare example of a buyer returning to the market for Iranian oil despite the obstacles arising from sanctions and efforts by Western powers to stem the flow. After jarring interruptions in exports from Iran last year that included a halt in shipments to top consumers Japan and South Korea, importers have found ways to keep oil flowing without violating sanctions. The allure of cheap oil and improved margins has made it worthwhile for the South Korean joint venture between two big international firms to find ways around difficulties. The deal may save Samsung Total as much as $6.7 million in costs, according to Reuters calculations...
Replacing the Iranian oil forced up Samsung Total's input costs, contributing to a fall in operating profits...
"The deal can be easily understood if you look at Samsung Total's financial situation," according to a government source in Seoul with direct knowledge of the matter.

It's not only the South Koreans who are doing quiet deals with the Iranians. Samsung Total Petrochemicals Co is a joint venture between Samsung Group and energy giant Total of France. "Spokespeople at Total, Samsung Total and the Samsung Group declined to comment", says Reuters.

There are probably some buyers of consumer electronics, cell phones and tablet computers out there who may be thinking about Samsung's actions the next time they place an order.

Meanwhile, the Iranians have been cooking up some deal announcements of their own. In the past few hours, Fox News said the Iranian oil ministry announced that

all crude oil and gas exports have been banned to the 27-nation European Union, which has already imposed its own boycott on Iranian energy imports as part of sanctions over Tehran's nuclear program... Sunday's announcement by spokesman Ali Reza Nikzad Rahbar could be a symbolic act designed to reflect anger at Western unity over economic pressures on Iran. The semiofficial Mehr news agency quotes Rahbar as saying the Iranian ban will remain as long as "hostile decisions" are made by the EU.

27-Jan-13: Hamas' new army of children: Will the UN's and foreign funders' role in this scandal be critiqued by the news-reporting media?

Outside an UNRWA school in Gaza: [Image Source].  Education is UNRWA's "largest area of activity, accounting for half of its regular budget and 70 per cent of its staff" [quote]...  And most of its human cannon fodder.

Here's a follow-up question to our post ["24-Jan-13: Sacrificing the lives of an entire generation of adolescents on their altar of hatred, the thugs of Hamas boast of plans to create a children's army"] of three days ago. It comes from The Warped Mirror:

Among the many questions that should be raised in this context is whether the claim by AP that Hamas has been offering a military training program as “a weekly elective…in all Gaza high schools” means that UNRWA – which runs 245 schools for 225,000 students in Gaza – cooperates with Hamas in hosting or otherwise facilitating the military training of teenagers. UNWRA also has a program for donors to “adopt” a Gaza school, and recently, the German government donated 3 million Euros for the construction of two additional UNRWA schools in Gaza. No doubt these donations are well-meant, but they obviously also allow the Hamas-rulers of Gaza to avoid committing resources to the education of Gaza’s children while leaving them free to finance instead “jihad” training for teenagers...

Warped Mirror poses a crucial question. Restating it in our words, why do the many international organs that rush to condemn Israel for the harm that comes to Palestinian Arab teenagers in situations of conflict repeatedly gaze bashfully in another direction when the overt, publicized, boastful claims of Palestinian Arab leader tell us that their own society's children are mere expendable pawns in their efforts to inflict more and more terrorism on the other side (our side) in this ongoing war?

It's not hard to arrive at the answer - if you want to. The people who channel tax-payer funds into the hands of UNRWA and who provide money for the education of Palestinian Arab children living under the domination of the Islamists of Hamas know, or certainly should know, what's being done with the money they provide. They owe answers to the tax-payers whose money it is. They owe answers to the governments who tell them to do the channeling. Do they not care about the vast damage they do by looking the other way?

But even more than the donors, the management of UNRWA would certainly know. That's the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, the body that Forbes Magazine called "one of the UN's oldest and most oddly configured agencies":

Set up in 1949 with a temporary, three-year mandate to provide aid and jobs for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA has survived for almost 60 years, expanding its scope, budget and influence by extending refugee status to descendants of its beneficiaries...
UNRWA employs more than 24,000 staffers. That's more than any other UN agency, including the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, or UNHCR, which with some 6,300 staffers - about one-quarter the manpower of UNRWA - is responsible for all other refugees worldwide, totaling more than 11 million. At UNRWA, more than 99% of the staff are local Palestinians. They sit at the many local levers of the UNRWA distribution machinery, which under UNRWA policy takes on the coloration of and yields to the policies of host governments - as UNRWA officials explained to U.S. lawmakers who some years ago challenged the use of anti-Israeli textbooks in UNRWA schools. In today's terrorist-run Gaza, such an approach carries exactly the kind of deadly implications now playing out - while UNRWA and other UN officials call for an end to the violence. [more]

UNRWA's contact details are here. They include phone, fax and snail-mail details for the organization's head office in Gaza City as well as its branches in Amman, New York, Washington DC, Geneva, Brussels and Cairo.

Before you call, take a moment to learn who pays for its activity. If you assume UNRWA's budget is funded by those ultra-wealthy Arab oil potentates and the statelets they run, think again. We pointed out in a post almost a year ago that only one non-Western entity, the Islamic Development Bank, is in UNRWA's top twenty funders list - and that one comes in at nineteenth place with a contribution 3% the size of the hated Americans' and 3.5% of what Australia (Australia!) contributes. The numbers in the table we prepared below come from the UN itself. 

It was we who created the table, but these are official donation numbers provided by UNRWA itself [source] covering all donations for the year 2010 and ranked by size of overall contribution.

The silence from Middle East "experts" in the media and in global politics - especially in the wake of the publicized plans by Ismail Haniyeh and his Hamas co-thugs to create a new high-school academy for terrorists - screams out for an explanation. And action.