Israellycool

The Muslim News reports on the phenomenom of “flirtatious taxi drivers [who] get on women’s nerves.”

And with pick-up lines like this, it’s no wonder why.

More often than not women find that the driver wants to flirt and sometimes makes disgusting advances.

Sana M, a mother of a teenage girl, recounts experience once when she was traveling with her daughter in a taxi.

“We got into this cab and we were heading home, but I needed to make a few stops, so I asked the driver to wait for me and I told him that I would pay him the extra for the stops,” she said.

“I asked him to stop near a pharmacy; my daughter wasn’t well so she waited in the cab while I got the medicines. When I was gone this driver started asking her questions, he asked her how old she was? And which school she studied in? And what was her name? When my daughter refused to give him this information, he told her that there was no need to be frightened of him, because he is friends with many girls and they all like him. He told her ‘if you become friends with me you will like me too, I can take you in my car for outings to amusement parks and the beach.’”

Sana said that unfortunately her daughter didn’t tell her about the taxi driver’s questions until they got home. “I would have turned him to the police,” said Sana. “I’m terrified each time I think what would have happened if my daughter had been fooled by that pervert and given him her details.”

Taxi drivers that are corrupt and out to find someone to prey on rather than to make a decent buck often do the good-guy act; they are very cunning and often seem to know the kind of conversation that appeals to their particular passenger.

Um Khalid, a Yemeni, doesn’t own a car and so depends on taxis. “I needed to go to a clinic and I got into a cab,” she said.

“As I was in the taxi I received a call from a relative and in the conversation I confirmed an appointment I had the next day. After I ended the call the driver started up a conversation even though I showed no interest. At first I didn’t think anything of it — he started to talk about how expensive things had become and how poor families are suffering, then he started to talk about how people should be good to each other and take care of each other and the world could be a better place. I thought this is a good person. I was surprised and thought it a coincidence when I saw his taxi come up to me the next day. This time he started to ask questions, he asked how large is my family and how many family members lived with me?”

Um Khalid said this was when she felt suspicious of the driver’s intentions. “The whole time that I was in the car he wouldn’t stop asking questions. He asked if I had shares in a company or if I wanted to start any business. Then he told me that he was married to an elderly woman, but has divorced her now. Then he said he wants to buy me dinner. I told him, ‘no thanks’! Then he had the nerve to ask me to visit his home. He said his sisters would like to get to know me.”

Smooth.

I’m guessing that even if these men had martyred themselves, the 72 virgins would refuse to sleep with them.

Note: Even though this report is from April 1st, I’m guessing it is no prank.

Saudi Arabia’s grand mufti and ZZ Top impersonator Abdelaziz al-Sheikh doesn’t think the Saudi government’s idea to invite Jews to a conference on interreligious dialogue has any legs.

So to speak.

Saudi Arabia’s grand mufti Abdelaziz al-Sheikh has rejected an attempt by the government to open interreligious dialogue with Jewish rabbis (as opposed to Christian rabbis, I guess - ed.).

According to a report by the official Kuwaiti news agency Kuna on Wednesday, the mufti refused to accept any visit by rabbis to a conference on interreligious dialogue, expected to be held in the kingdom’s capital Riyadh.

A week ago, Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz Ibn Saud announced the conference in what appears to be the first attempt at dialogue between the three monotheistic faiths, Islam, Judaism and Christianity.

Any move to create dialogue between Saudi Arabia’s imams and Israel’s rabbis would be groundbreaking on a religious and political level in the Middle East.

Saudi Arabia currently has no diplomatic relations with Israel.

But Saudi Arabia’s mufti tried to quickly distance himself from the announcement by the Saudi monarch.

“I ask the media to check their facts and report the truth before spreading the news,” said al-Sheikh.

Be careful what you wish for, oh hairy hateful one.

An unbelievably sick story out of Saudi Arabia, reported impassively by Arab News:

RIYADH, 18 March 2008 — Muhammad Al-Zahrani, a convicted murderer, was executed at the end of February in Taif. Al-Zahrani’s execution, which was postponed for four years, took place after the victims’ family refused to pardon him.However, what makes Al-Zahrani’s case interesting is that the convicted murderer had married his daughter to another convicted murderer on death row in the same prison, Awad Al-Harbi.

The newly married groom now lives in the hope that he may be saved by the generosity of his victim’s family.

Reaction in society to the prison marriage was mixed. Some saw the father’s decision as a good thing, a way to give a friend and fellow prisoner a second chance in life. Others condemned the step and described it as being unfair to one’s daughter.

The marriage fulfills all legal conditions under Saudi law, according to Sheikh Abdul Mohsen Al-Obaikan, a member of the Council of Senior Scholars.

Al-Obaikan said should a woman accept a man on death row after knowing about his situation there is no reason why the marriage should be stopped from happening. When Arab News questioned Al-Obaikan on the girl’s sound judgment considering she is only 15, he said she is considered an adult and therefore eligible to marry.

Al-Obaikan said that a woman could get married and see her husband die soon after, which would be God’s will, and in Al-Awad’s case it would also be God’s will to keep him alive should the victim’s family pardons him.

As for the idea of marriage in Islam being a form of asylum and haven, and whether this condition applies while one of the spouses is in captivity, Al-Obaikan said that if it is a woman’s choice then no one should object.

Ahmad Al-Hariri, a Ph.D. in forensic psychology, said, “In other countries, a 15-year-old is considered a child and cannot be considered an adult until she turns 18.”

He added that even if such a marriage is legal then it is still considered an assault on her humanity and wellbeing.

Al-Hariri said this could not be accepted both socially and psychologically. “After choosing a suitable spouse, starting a family and having children are the natural outcome of marriage and in this case there is no guarantee for such a family to exist and thrive,” said Al-Hariri.

“The overwhelming possibility of the success of this marriage is bleak, and what we see for the future is a widow with orphans,” he added.

“Even if this marriage is legal, it is totally unacceptable on a humanitarian level as it will harm the girl’s interests. Should the Reconciliation Committee’s efforts fail she will loose a husband after having lost her father,” Al-Hariri said.

Even the liberal Saudi expert who is against the marriage doesn’t state the obvious - that it is the worst form of child abuse to force your daughter to marry a convicted murderer! He’s more worried that the marriage will end up with the girl becoming a widow - which is perhaps the best outcome to be hoped. Perhaps more disturbing is that it is assumed that she will end up “with orphans” - does this mean that she will be forced to go to the prison to be with this murderer?

All because, to the executed murderer, the potential freedom of his killer friend was more important than his daughter’s life.

And yet, according to Sharia, this is all perfectly acceptable.

The New York Times Magazine last Sunday had a lengthy article by Noah Feldman that talks about sharia and how it really isn’t so bad, how the West isn’t looking at it with enough nuance and how much better it was than English common law - in the 18th century. Perhaps he can defend this action better than the Arab News managed to.

First they came for men who dig camels, but I prefer my partners with less humps so I did not speak out.

Then they came for the men who dig women…

Saudi Arabia began interrogating 57 men Saturday who were arrested after allegedly flirting with women in front of a shopping mall in the holy city of Mecca, a local newspaper reported.

The country’s religious police arrested the men Thursday night, alleging behavior that included dancing to pop music blaring from their cars and wearing improper clothing, according to the Okaz newspaper, which is deemed close to the government.

Now I make do with what is convenient.

Reuters reports:

The United States has agreed in principle to provide Israel with better “smart bombs” than those it plans to sell Saudi Arabia under a regional defense package, senior Israeli security sources said on Sunday.Keen to bolster Middle East allies against an ascendant Iran, the Bush administration last year proposed supplying Gulf Arab states with some $20 billion in new weapons, including Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) bomb kits for the Saudis.

The plan has angered Israel’s backers in Washington, who say the JDAMs, which give satellite guidance for bombs, may one day be used against the Jewish state or at least blunt its power to deter potential foes. Israel has had JDAMs since 1990 and has used them extensively in a 2006 offensive in Lebanon.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s government dropped its objections to the proposed Saudi deal in July after securing U.S. military aid grants worth $30 billion over the next decade.

Two Israeli security sources said the United States further mollified the Olmert government with an “understanding in principle” that future JDAM sales to Israel would include advanced technologies not on offer to Saudi Arabia.

“We are checking which of the top-of-the-line JDAMs will become available to us. The agreement is that Israel’s qualitative edge will be preserved,” one source said.

This is idiotic on a number of levels.

First of all, Saudi Arabia can have a trillion dollars’ worth of weapons; they are useless in a kingdom that has no decent army, no military expertise, and utterly no ability to deter any Iranian offenses. If Iran would decide for some reason to attack Saudi Arabia, it would be the US that defends it anyway - the Saudis would crumple on their own no matter what advanced weaponry they own (and they already own quite a bit of it.)

The Saudi arsenal is nothing more than a tempting target for terrorists to get their own hands on advanced weaponry for uses that are far from their conventional intent.

Moreover, in a world where asymmetric warfare is the prevailing wisdom, giving Israel a “qualitative edge” in having “smarter” bombs doesn’t help Israel’s defense a bit. Is there any chance that the Islamists who might end up with Saudi weaponry would care that Israel is somewhat better at hitting back purely military targets? They’ll be using this advanced weaponry against population centers in Israel. As Lebanon showed, Geneva no longer applies in the Arab wars against Israel and giving Israel better offensive weapons does not help much against an enemy for whom death is desirable.

Now, if the US would give Israel technology that can defend against the Saudi bombs - if an encrypted backdoor was placed in the JDAM software that could disable the weapons remotely, for example - then this might make sense. But the fact that Israel’s theoretical future versions of JDAMs might have an accuracy of 3 meters rather than 6 meters is pretty much meaningless.

None of this makes sense. Iran is not deterred in the least by these moves, on the contrary it gives them even more incentive to build nuclear bombs.

This deal might benefit defense contractors but pretty much no one else.

(cross-posted at Elder of Ziyon)

The Independent (UK) notes:

Saudi Arabia has so far refused to commit to budget support for the emergency government set up by the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, in a political move casting a shadow over Monday’s international donors’ conference in Paris. The kingdom, along with the Gulf states which normally follow its lead, has declined ahead of the conference to promise around half the $1.4bn (£700m) a year needed to meet the Ramallah government’s annual deficit, according to diplomatic and Palestinian sources. One key reason is thought to be Saudi Arabia’s reluctance to be seen to be throwing all its weight behind one of the two parties to the coalition deal which it brokered and which then collapsed in bloody internal conflict and Hamas’s seizure of control in Gaza in June.

The pro-Hamas IMEMC adds:

Of $421 million in support pledged by Arab nations for this year’s Palestinian Authority budget, only $80 million has been delivered.

Arab nations have in the past pledged big and delivered little to their Pali brethren:

Many nations will be assembled at the Paris donor conference, but unfortunately the countries that could contribute the most — the Gulf states — have done the least. It will be interesting to see whether Paris marks a new departure for these countries. For all their statements on behalf of their Palestinian Arab brethren and how important the peace issue is to progress on other regional fronts, the Gulf Arabs have contributed very little financially to the Palestinians in recent years. According to World Bank officials, the annual Saudi contribution to the Palestinian Authority has been $84 million for most of this decade, while the other Gulf countries have given less or nothing at all. Despite their joint pledge of $660 million per year at an emergency Arab League summit in 2002, when oil prices were a fraction of what they are today, little has actually happened. Similarly, a Saudi promise last year to provide $300-$500 million was never fulfilled, according to U.S. and Arab officials.

The minute amount that Saudi Arabia gives is even more telling in light of its huge oil revenues. As the Washington Institute for Near East Policy notices:

The shortage of Gulf aid to the Palestinians certainly does not result from a lack of wealth, which has reached staggering proportions due to the quadrupling of oil prices since 2002. According to the U.S. Department of Energy and the IMF, oil revenue for the six Gulf Cooperation Council states (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Oman, and Bahrain) should reach about $400 billion this year, half of it belonging to the Saudis. This would make their joint contribution to the Palestinians only 0.04 percent of their annual oil revenues. Adding to that wealth is their cumulative current account surplus since 2003, which will reach $700 billion this year.

And although this question is not meant to be rhetorical, it really is:

Do Gulf Arabs really think that the U.S. mortgage market and similar opportunities represent better investments than funding the economic infrastructure and future well being of the Palestinians, for whom they have campaigned for decades?

As Arabs who have watched the Palestinian Arabs whine and fritter away opportunities for peace and stability for decades, the Saudis know far better than the West how supremely bad an investment the Palis are. Money given to them has historically, invariably been thrown away. Decades of UNRWA aid as well as Western aid has not improved things one bit - their leaders still choose terror rather than peace, living in “camps” rather than permanent housing, and investing in weapons rather than infrastructure.

The Saudis know a bad investment when they see one. Too bad that today, in Paris, the West is likely to continue to throw out billions of dollars on a people whose leaders will use that money to fund death.

(cross-posted to Elder of Ziyon)

From JTA (and also PalPress):

Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States rejected recognizing Israel as a Jewish state.”There are 1.5 million civilians in Israel who do not define themselves as Jewish,” Adel al-Jubeir told reporters at the U.S.-convened Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in Annapolis, Md.

“We do not believe states should define themselves according to religion or ethnicity.”

…said the representative of a nation whose official religion is Islam, whose legal system is based on Shari’a, whose king holds the title “Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques,” and whose constitution starts with:

Article 1
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a sovereign Arab Islamic state with Islam as its religion; God’s Book and the Sunnah of His Prophet, God’s prayers and peace be upon him, are its constitution, Arabic is its language and Riyadh is its capital.

Article 2
The state’s public holidays are Id al-Fitr and Id al-Adha. Its calendar is the Hegira calendar.

Article 3
The state’s flag shall be as follows:
(a) It shall be green.
(b) Its width shall be equal to two-thirds of it’s length.
(c) The words “There is but one God and Mohammed is His Prophet” shall be inscribed in the center with a drawn sword under it. The statute shall define the rules pertaining to it.

cross-posted to Elder of Ziyon

One year ago, Pope Benedict XVI inflamed the Muslim world by quoting a Byzantine emperor from 1391 as saying: “Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”

The Muslim reaction was, predictably, violence, with at least two killed and many more cases or arson and threats.

Now, the Saudi king has visited the Pope discussing “peace, justice and moral values.” And the King didn’t come empty-handed - he gave the Pope “a traditional Middle Eastern gift — a golden sword studded with jewels.”

The King, representing Islam as the “Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, ” certainly showed his esteem for the Pope and for his calls for peace - by giving him a weapon.

crossposted to Elder of Ziyon

Last week a bunch of internal, informal memos written by Donald Rumsfeld were leaked out and caused a minor embarrassment to the White House. In one of them, Rumsfeld wrote that oil wealth has at times detached Muslims “from the reality of the work, effort and investment that leads to wealth for the rest of the world. Too often Muslims are against physical labor, so they bring in Koreans and Pakistanis while their young people remain unemployed. An unemployed population is easy to recruit to radicalism.”

Not surprisingly, the terror-supporting CAIR complained, and the White House distanced itself from the memo.

The White House on Thursday sympathized with Arab-Americans who took offense to a memo that former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld wrote saying that “oil wealth has made Muslims averse to physical labor.”Rumsfeld’s belief is “not at all in line with the president’s views,” White House press secretary Dana Perino said.

Asked about Rumsfeld’s memo, Perino acknowledged that some Arab-American groups took offense to his comment.

“We are aware that we have a lot of work to do in order to win hearts and minds across the Arab world and the Muslim world and I can understand why they would be offended by those comments,” she said.

Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said Rumsfeld’s comment reflects the “stereotypical attitude” that led the United States to invade Iraq.

“Our policy was never based on reality,” Hooper said. “It was based on the wild ideas of those who wanted to invade the region. … It shows you what kind of wrong-headed policymakers we had at the time.”

The problem is that Rumsfeld’s observations were dead-on accurate if you understand that he was referring to residents of the oil-rich Gulf states. In context, it is clear that this was what he was talking about.

Anyone reading the Saudi-based Arab News for any period of time will see more than a few stories about the problems Saudis have with the sheer number of foreign workers they’ve brought in, legally or illegally, and not only from Pakistan or Korea but also from poor countries in Africa. Amnesty International estimates over seven million foreign workers in Saudi Arabia alone, with limited rights.

And this is not a new phenomenon - hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Arabs migrated to the Gulf in the fifties and sixties, not only because the the economic opportunities there but also because the local Arabs were simply lazy and the Palestinian Arabs who were willing to move and get off the UNRWA dole were hard working and ambitious. It has been observed that Palestinian Arabs essentially built Kuwait’s entire infrastructure.

As far as the other half of Rumsfeld’s observations, that young spoiled Arabs are ripe for recruiting into terror groups, this is also beyond dispute. As studies have shown, the average terrorist is not poor but comes from the middle class and has above-average wealth and education - and in Saudi Arabia, the middle class means that you only have two or three maids in your house.

It is not a stretch to think that these young men are the prime recruits for terror. As was reported this week, Saudi Arabia is the “hub of world terror.”

So what exactly did Rumsfeld say that was wrong or offensive? His observations and inferences were as accurate as any can be about a group of people.

If the White House wants to capture the “hearts and minds” of the Arab world, it will not succeed by pandering to fantasies and myths. Distancing itself from the truth about the Arab world and the sources of terrorism is a giant step backwards.

(h/t Jihad Watch, crossposted to Elder of Ziyon)

YNet has a provocative editorial by Sever Plocker, arguing for territorial compromise from a purely economic perspective:

Oil-exporting Mideastern countries earned roughly $600 billion from oil and gas exports. In the years 2003-2006, the export revenues of these countries totaled about $2,100 billion.

This year, export revenues of Middle Eastern oil-rich nations will reach another $700 billion; should the price of oil reach $100 dollars a barrel, the revenues will leap forth to $850 billion. Next year, in 2008, the Arab-Muslim Mideast’s oil revenues will cross the $1,000 billion mark. We should remember this number: One thousand billion dollar revenues from oil and gas exports in one year.

Israel’s GDP, that is, the total value of all the products and services produced in Israel, will total roughly $170 billion this year. Or in other words, the Muslim-Arab world’s oil export revenues are at least six times higher than all of Israel’s domestic production….

It’s hard to exaggerate the implication of such figures. They shape a new Middle East, but not the kind of Mideast President Shimon Peres dreamed of. Arab and Muslim oil exporters no longer need Israel’s assistance in order to integrate into the global world. The world is knocking at their doors. The approved investment plans of the Emirates alone are estimated at $800 billion for the next five years.

And we are not there.

A two-hour flight away from Tel Aviv, on the sands of the desert, we are seeing the emergence of an oil- and gas-based Arab-Muslim economic empire never before seen in this region. Its power will grow from one year to the next. It will be a major player in deciding the fate of the global economy.

Yet all of this is happening without us. The Arab economic prosperity, which is so close to our borders, is completely skipping us. It is still not being directed at us. The Arabs have not yet internalized their power and wealth. It came too quickly and too easily. Yet they will internalize it, grasp it, and start conducting themselves accordingly.

For Israel, this is the last chance to “get on the bandwagon” and join this new reality. We must change our national perception: Israel’s economy, with all its technological achievements, will continue to dwarf in the face of the accumulated wealth of the Arab-Muslim Mideast. Our economy will decline to a much greater extent if we do not have any access to this wealth.

Such access can only be facilitated by signing an Israeli-Palestinian agreement to end the conflict. The most blatant Israeli existential interest is to advance the signing of such agreement, and through it normalize our ties with wealthy oil exporters – we can then start trading with them, selling to them, and taking part in their development plans.

The opening of Mideastern markets to Israel could double the annual growth rate of our economy from 5 to 10 percent. The Arab wealth would also enable an economic-financial resolution of the Palestinian refugee problem, once such agreement is reached by all parties. This will require no more than a donation of 5% of the foreign currency reserves of oil-exporting countries or of their annual export revenues. There would still be money left, via wise business investment, to turn the future Palestinian state into a growing region.

Those who prefer to keep dozens of West Bank settlements over the opening of Israeli embassies in Riyadh and Qatar and over opening the Saudi and Libyan market to Israeli exports are anti-Zionist in my view. They understand nothing when it comes to the new Mideastern balance of power. They will leave Israel deep in the shadow, and in practice jeopardizes the foundations of our existence.

This is a seductive argument, one that many Israelis subscribe to.

It is also wrong, shortsighted and dangerous.

While he spends most of the article discussing the undeniable growth of the oil economy, Plocker papers over exactly how Israel’s withdrawal from the West Bank would turn the implacably hostile Arab world into a friendly trading partner. More importantly, he completely ignores the character of the resultant Palestinian Arab state that would be his neighbor.

The Arab economic boycott of Israel has been in place, officially or unofficially, since before 1948. Israel’s trade with Egypt and Jordan has not skyrocketed in the time since their respective peace agreements; in fact some Egyptian firms have been penalized by the WTO for still complying with the boycott. Conversely, clandestine trade with Arab countries still nominally at war with Israel continues to grow. Israel would probablybenefit economically by an agreement but the trade would remain clandestine and hidden to the Arab public and would be hampered by the anti-semitism that has not abated at all in the Arab world. There would be no bonanza for Israel.

Plocker somewhat deceptively implies that Israel’s economy is shrinking in the face of this tsunami of Arab growth: “Our economy will decline to a much greater extent if we do not have any access to this wealth.” Of course, Israel’s economy is not declining at all; as even Plocker observes in other columns. He probably means “relative to the Middle East” but this is much different from the doom and gloom he is implying. It is not clear why Israel is threatened by an annual economic growth of 5%, regardless of the growth of the oil rich countries. It is also a fantastic guess on Plocker’s part that Israel’s economic growth would double should trade increase.

Israel’s economy is also far more diversified than that of the Gulf states. Plocker makes a basic error in assuming that the boom in oil prices will continue unabated. It is quite likely that these high energy prices will spur the faster development of alternative energy resources as they become more economically feasible, and the stunning growth that he forecasts would then disappear. The Arab world’s economy is so heavily weighted to energy that it is not a very stable area to subsume Israel’s security interests.

Plocker is an economic editor for Yediot Aharonot so perhaps he can be forgiven for looking at the world through the prism of economics. Even so, how much has Israel benefited economically from its withdrawal from Gaza? The IDF still makes daily forays into Gaza to root our terrorists; Israel is spending money to develop anti-Qassam defenses, Sderot’s economy is close to nonexistent. Israel’s economy has grown since then but how much has been because of the goodwill engendered from the withdrawal and how much would have happened anyway? If Plocker wants to use a purely economic viewpoint to argue for a Palestinian Arab state, these are the questions he should be researching.

Which brings up the weakest part of Plocker’s argument: Israel’s security. It is likely that an independent Palestinian Arab state will, in short order, turn into an Islamist state. Israelis so desperately want peace that they are willing to turn a blind eye to what is happening in the Palestinian Arab world in particular, and the Arab world in general. Only last year Hamas won a popular election and even with the hundreds of millions pouring in to prop up Abbas it is far from clear that a new election would have any different results. An Islamist state on Israel’s eastern and southern borders - with only a few miles between it and the Mediterranean - is not worth any amount of money.

Even if Abbas retains leadership, he has little control over the terrorism that is sure to follow any agreement. Instead of Israeli checkpoints stopping countless terror attacks over the Green Line, Israel would return to being a nation under siege.

Plocker’s wishful thinking comes into full display when he airily says that the powerful oil-fueled Arab states would put billions of dollars into solving the “refugee” problem. Why, exactly, would a peace agreement with Israel make Arab states more likely to help their Palestinian “brethren” when their trillions have failed to do so up until now? On the contrary, the Arab states have made it clear that they want to keep the Palestinian Arabs in as much misery as possible, giving next to nothing to UNRWA and giving more money towards Palestinian terrorism than housing. They have passed laws enshrining discrimination against Palestinian Arabs. They have made it clear that they want to “refugee” problem to fester, not disappear.

And, unfortunately for the Israeli optimists, the reason is because they are still more interested in destroying Israel than helping Palestinian Arabs. While they might allow some Israeli agricultural equipment or medicines to arrive on their lands, they are still living with the ultimate insult to Arab masculinity - the existence of a Jewish state on Arab lands and the constant reminder of their war losses. Economics does not trump the deep-seated bigotry that the average Arab has against Jews having any control over land in the Middle East. Even should Israel help create another terror state next door, there will inevitably be border disputes a la Shebaa Farms and there will always be perceived insults to Arab honor a la Danish cartoons and Israel will always be the lightning rod for Arab anger. No amount of concessions can change that.

Perhaps King David put it best when he said (Psalms 146:3)”Put not your trust in princes…in whom there is no hope.” Israel cannot mortgage its security to the promise of trade that the princes of Arabia may - or may not - agree to.

cross-posted to Elder of Ziyon

The Saudi divorce rate is on the rise.

Riyadh, Asharq Al-Awsat- according to a Saudi family counselor ,the divorce rate in Saudi Arabia is on the rise, revealing that 38 percent of marriages end in divorce and that 33 percent of these divorces take place within the first three years of the marriage.

Dr. Laila al Hilali, who owns and runs a family counseling center by the same name, believes that the reason behind this increase is a result of the lack of understanding between couples, and the fact that they do not fully comprehend the proper foundations of a marriage.

Based on the cases she receives at her clinic, Dr. al Hilali said that the marital problems prevalent in Saudi Arabia stem from the fact that couples are quick to jump to conclusions without evaluating the situation properly. She believes that marriages in Saudi are bereft of the dialogue and patience required to make a marriage work.

Furthermore, she noted that spouses like to keep a record of one another’s mistakes and shortcomings. They forget that they represent a united front rather than two independent individuals so that each party ends up doing what it pleases without taking the other into consideration. Dr. al Hilali also believes that the lack of romance between couples is a key factor that leads to an unfulfilling marriage.

I could think of some other reasons.

Having said that, I am a little surprised by the high divorce rate. After all, it’s not like the women can pack up all their belongings and drive away.

Some of you did not appreciate the Zionist Death Interviewer.^TM And I can understand why if you don’t realize that he is also showing his ignorance about Judaism when he explains the jelly donut. In any event, it was quite simple - some took offence, and made it known to me.

For some, offending the religious sensibilities of others has much more serious consequences (hat tip: BEShep33).

Hadi Saeed al-Mutif grew up in the countryside in southern Saudi Arabia and at the age of 18 started training to become a policeman. Two months into his training, Hadi had gathered with other recruits for afternoon prayers, as required by the rules. “Let us pray upon the Prophet ..” the Imam said - at which point Hadi allegedly quipped: “… and upon his penis”.

A couple of his fellow recruits reported Hadi to the authorities at the training centre and he was ordered to stand under the Saudi flag for two hours as a punishment.

Standing under the Saudi flag a punishment? I can understand why. But I digress.

That might have been the end of the matter, except that a military inspector happened to be visiting at the time. Instead, this silly incident set in motion a train of events which is still continuing after almost 13 years, involving every level of Saudi Arabia’s Byzantine justice system and even reaching the ears of the king.

Throughout this process, one factor that seems to be constantly relevant is that Hadi comes from Najran - an ethnically and culturally different part of the kingdom - and is a Shia Muslim from the Ismaili branch, which many in the Saudi religious and legal establishment regard as heretical.

Hadi denies using the words he is alleged to have uttered, but the quip about the Prophet’s penis is not totally unheard of, at least in some circles. I have been unable to find out much about its origin and usage, but it seems to be something that laddish types say to make their mates snigger at an inappropriate moment - a bit like the occasionally irreverent antics of choirboys in Christian churches.

At least two other cases of people getting into trouble for using exactly the same phrase have been documented in Saudi Arabia. In one case a high school student (also Ismaili) was reported by his teacher and received a 14-year jail sentence with 4,000 lashes.

From the training centre, Hadi was taken to the local police station where the officers scratched their heads over what to do about him. After detaining him for 13 days, they unburdened themselves by handing him over to the Mabahith, the kingdom’s domestic intelligence service.

During his 25 days in the custody of the Mabahith, according to Hadi’s account, he was tortured with beatings and sleep deprivation. Finally, a judge arrived and ordered him to sign a confession - which he refused to do.

He then spent a year in military detention awaiting trial. After hearing two or three witnesses and holding six court sessions, the judge decided Hadi was guilty and sentenced him to death.

Two appeals followed - one to a court in Mecca and another to the Supreme Judicial Council. Both were rejected, and in both cases the judges’ views on the religious inadequacy of Ismaili Muslims seem to have been a major factor.

In a final bid to save his life, Hadi’s family made an appeal for mercy to the acting monarch at the time, Crown Prince Abdullah, who ordered a special committee to look into the case.

In fact, three committees became involved: a judicial committee, an administrative committee and a forensic committee.

For the purposes of the forensic committee, Hadi spent six months in a psychiatric facility in Ta’if, where he says they took pity on him. They concluded that he was suffering from depression and psychosis and had not been responsible for his actions at the time of the alleged incident. This was attributed to an earlier traumatic experience when he witnessed the gruesome death of his grandmother - accidentally chopped up by a haymaking machine.

The judicial committee, however, over-ruled the forensic committee and decided that Hadi should be punished in a way that would set an example for others.

Crown Prince Abdullah has since become king and six months ago Hadi’s father, together with a local sheikh from Najran, managed to secure an audience with him. The king expressed a desire to find a solution; some say he commuted the death sentence to life imprisonment - though no one seems entirely sure.

Hadi is now 31. Thirteen years after allegedly making a stupid remark he is still in jail, with his future unresolved. On September 5 he began a hunger strike, saying that he intends to fast until death.