Candle Vigil For Kobani

Photograph: Daryl McCann

Last night, October 31, 2014, saw a Candle Vigil in Adelaide organised by the Adelaide Kurdish Youth Society. Here is the link to their Facebook site: https://www.facebook.com/AdelaideKurdishYouthSociety

Kobani is Stalingrad - D'oh!

It is nice to know that that even obtuse publications such as the Economist have worked out the obvious: http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21629475-kobane-has-acquired-huge-symbolic-significance-all-those-fighting-it

Narin Afrin Speaks to the Free World

This is a link to an op-ed in the New York Times by Narin Afrin, leader of the YPJ: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/29/opinion/turkeys-obstruction-of-kobanis-battle-against-isis.html?_r=0

The Fight Continues for Kobani, Rojava

This is hopeful news: http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/peshmerga-troops-start-entering-syrian-border-town-26566442

Egypt vs Qatar, Turkey, Iran & Islamic Terrorism

Gaza Tunnel

The Long War is not a conflagration between the West and Muslims but between Islamic millennialism (and the bohemian leftist enablers in the West) and virtually everybody else: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/10/27/egypt-considers-gaza-wall-to-block-hamas-terror-attacks/ 

Green Peace Apostate on Andrew Bolt Show

This is a link to Patrick Moore's interview on the Andrew Bolt Show today:
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/video/id-4wbnhicTq2SiJCpr8DGX6yXD3UB9YJwl/PATRICK-MOORE-INTERVIEW

Here is a review I wrote three years ago for Quadrant on Patrick Moore's book, Confession of a Greenpeace Dropout: http://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2011/05/the-personal-costs-of-spurning-green-misanthropy/

Russell Brand Enters the Twilight Zone

Conspiracy theories tell us more about the conspiracist than anything else. As a serious thinker, Russell Brand is one funny guy:      
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/russell-brand-says-george-bush-could-have-been-behind-9-11-attacks-1471583

Here is a link to the article I wrote for the November 2013 edition of Quadrant on JFK assassination conspiracy theories: http://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2013/11/john-f-kennedys-assassination-america/

Richard Landes & Ten Reasons Against a Palestinian State

Screen shot of Richard Landes' The Augean Stables site

This is Richard Landes' important essay on why a Palestinian state is not such a good idea: http://www.theaugeanstables.com/2014/10/15/peace-when-ten-reasons-why-a-palestinian-state-now-is-bad-for-the-world/   

Egypt vs the Islamic State...sorry, Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis

Violent jihadism has many names: http://www.smh.com.au/world/egypt-declares-state-of-emergency-after-sinai-car-bomb-kills-30-soldiers-20141025-11bn95.html

Fatah Commends Killer of Israeli Baby

Courtesy of Memri-TV

Hamas and Fatah are often on the same murderous page: http://www.algemeiner.com/2014/10/23/abbas-fatah-praises-slayer-of-israeli-infant-as-holy-martyr-as-new-attack-footage-emerges-video/

Here, by the way, is the link to Memri (the Middle East Media Research Institute): http://www.memri.org/

Hating Jews is not Trendy or Cool

Here is a disturbing article by Liam Hoare about pro-Hamas sentiment at various British universities: http://www.timesofisrael.com/uk-jewish-students-struggle-to-avoid-twinning-with-hamas-greenhouse/

This Women's Liberation Movement is a Patriotic Liberation Movement

Narin Afrin photographed by Jamie Wiseman for the Daily Mail

Here is another fascinating article by Gareth Platt on the Women's Protection Unit (YPJ): http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/kurdish-female-fighters-war-story-i-dont-know-how-many-ive-killed-kobani-i-dont-see-1471412

Why has Turkey's Erdogan been Obama's Point Man in the Middle East?

Here is Michael Curtis writing about Turkey's President Erdogan: https://mail.google.com/mail/ca/u/0/#inbox/14936eb57540d9f3

This is an article I wrote last year for Quadrant Online titled "Modern Turkey's Last Stand": http://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/qed/2013/06/modern-turkey-s-last-stand

Good vs Bad

Here is an interesting story about an American, Jeremy Woodard, who has gone to fight with the PYG: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-29705167

Liberating the People!

There is a great visual here from a German news agency: http://www.dw.de/kurdish-fighters-repel-fresh-is-attack-in-kobani/a-18006401

The Tide Turns In Kobani

Women carry the caskets holding the bodies of four female Kurdish fighters (YPJ)

The tide might well be turning against the Islamic State in Kobani: http://time.com/3513840/isis-syria-kobani-kurds/

US-led air strikes on Kobani

A photograph taken on 15 October 2014

Here is the latest from Phil Stewart and David Alexander via Reuters: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/15/us-mideast-crisis-usa-pentagon-idUSKCN0I42EY20141015

Rehana vs the Islamic State

If this is not a photograph of Women's Protection Unit (YPJ) fighter Rehana it should be 

I am not sure how completely true this following report by Gareth Platt in the International Business Times is, though we can but hope: http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/heroine-kobani-kurdish-female-fighter-rehana-kills-100-isis-jihadis-single-handedly-1469989

The Kurds Recapture Strategic Kobani Hill

Here is the latest report from the BBC: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-29611673

France's Loss, Israel's Gain

The cover of Robert S. Wistrich's From Ambivalence to Betrayal

What follows is a powerful indictment of French anti-Semitism in an article by Robert S. Wistrich: http://mosaicmagazine.com/essay/2014/10/summer-in-paris/

Here is a review I wrote of Wistrich's From Ambivalence to Betrayal: The Left, the Jews and Israel (2012):  http://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2012/11/how-the-left-became-anti-semitic/

Letter from YPG fighter to her Mother

YPG or People's Protection Units

Here is letter from a female YPG fighter, involved in the siege of Kobani, to her mother: http://www.hawarnews.com/english/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2656:letter-from-a-ypj-fighter-to-her-mother&catid=6:manet

President Erdogan's Priorities

Turkey's President Erdogan has done great damage to his nation's standing in the world. Why? Some of the answer might be in this article by Joan Smith in the British Independent newspaper: http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/isis-in-kobani-why-turkey-is-allowing-the-town-to-fall-9789197.html

The Battle of Kobani

The Battle for Kobani is like a modern-day Stalingrad 

Rudaw might be a good site for obtaining the latest news on the Battle of Kobani:  http://rudaw.net/english

We Are All Israelis Now

Photograph taken in Jerusalem, January 2012. 

Here is the editorial in this week's Australian version of the Spectator magazine: http://www.spectator.co.uk/australia/australia-leading-article/9327821/leader-4/

In many ways it complements my Hamas article in this month's Quadrant:
http://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2014/10/hamass-propaganda-deed-gaza/

Here, by the way, is a link to the Honest Reporting site:http://honestreporting.com/

"Erdogan Hates the Syrian Kurds"

The Battle for Kobani

Here is a recent update on the Battle for Kobani in the Guardian newspaper:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/08/kobani-isis-turkey-kurds-ypg-syria-erdogan

Hizb ut-Tahrir in Australia

Click on this link for a fascinating article by Latika Bourke in today's Sydney Morning Herald concerning last night's Lateline interview between Emma Aberici and Wassim Doureihi, a spokesman for the Islamic group Hizb ut-Tahrir:
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/tony-abbott-backs-lateline-host-emma-alberici-over-fiery-hizb-uttahrir-interview-20141009-113fxd.html

Kobani: Kurds Attempting to Fend off Islamic State

This a report from the Guardian newspaper:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/07/syrian-kurds-isis-militants-kobani

Here is an article in the Jerusalem Post : http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Western-fear-of-angering-Turkey-leaves-besieged-Kurdish-town-at-mercy-of-Islamic-State-378395

For some relevant background reading, here is "The Downfall of Obama's Middle East Doctrine", which appeared in the March 2014 edition of Quadrant magazine: https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2014/03/downfall-obamas-middle-east-doctrine/

Hamas's Propaganda by Deed in Gaza

Hamas is the first cousin of the Islamic State 

Hamas, also known as the Islamic Resistance Movement, excels at only two things – terrorism and propaganda. On August 26, 2014, an open-ended ceasefire began with Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri declaring to the world: “We have won.” What they had won did not seem entirely clear. This was the same deal Hamas had rejected – and Israel accepted – on July 15. But terrorism is propaganda and propaganda terrorism, and so Zuhri felt free to boast that Hamas had accomplished “what no Arab army has done. We have defeated them.” With victories like this Hamas need never experience defeat.

Click here to read my entire article in the October 2014 edition of Quadrant: http://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2014/10/hamass-propaganda-deed-gaza/

Women Are The Other Half Of The Sky

Here is a fascinating article by Nicholas Krist in the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/02/opinion/nicholas-kristof-what-isis-could-teach-the-west.html?action=click&contentCollection=Opinion&region=Footer&module=MoreInSection&pgtype=article

Echoes of Tiananmen 1989

Here is a report on the incredibly polite people of Hong Kong who are prepared to take a stand against Beijing: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-29430229 

The Hamas Death Cult Murdering Gazan Civilians On Friday, 22 August 2014

To support or even apologise for the Hamas death cult is to be an enabler of violent and apocalyptic millennialism. Some Leftist historians are doing just that. See this article by Jeffrey Herf in The American Interest magazine:  http://www.the-american-interest.com/articles/2014/08/26/a-pro-hamas-left-emerges/ 

Then again, Karl Marx was an apocalyptic millennialist and so maybe the connection was just waiting to be made: http://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2011/10/the-opium-of-terry-eagleton/