I can see a pact forming. SOLers leave their respective jobs on the same day.

The Concept of Family in Islam * The Backbone of Society By Dr. Jamal Badawi Chairman, Islamic Information Foundation - Canada In Islam, family is the cornerstone of the social system. Family is not a casual or spontaneous organization of people, but it is a divinely ordained institution. Family and marriage are regarded as noble and sacred; a social contract that confers mutual rights and obligations on the couple. The progress and welfare of society or its breakdown can be traced to the strength and unity or to the weakness of the family. The weakness is a crucial indicator of the weakness of society, reflected by problems like juvenile delinquency, drug abuse, alcoholism, teenage pregnancies, and divorce. The concept of an "extended family" is common in non-Western cultures, unlike the concept of a "nuclear family", which means a family consisting of just the parents and their children, that is common in the West. "Extended family" means children, parents, grandparents, and sometimes in-laws share one household. Islam does not specify that a Muslim family should be either nuclear or extended. With regards to relations within the same family, the first and most important is that of husband and wife, their children, and the grandparents. Other relatives come in a second or third degree; although this is not to say that the individual has no obligation or responsibility at all towards these other relatives, whereas the first degree of relations has unequivocal and precise rights. Islamic Family Laws Although the nature of duties and obligations among members of a family are instinctive in human nature, it is important to realize that Islamic law exists only to supplement and enforce these innate feelings and not to replace them. Islam acts as a guarantee that the rights and responsibilities that each member of the family has with regard to others will be fulfilled with justice and equality. Islamic family law establishes minimum basic rights to guarantee the interests of each family member. Thus, in Islam, family relations are governed by a balance between the innate sense of duty felt by family members and what is laid down as a minimum by the law. In the absence of law, there could be problems arising from the fact that the innate nature of the father to treat all his children equally could be overridden by an attachment to one particular child, and so this child is especially favored, for example in inheritance, leaving the other children with their rights denied. Lineage or lineal duty has an essential role in the Muslim family because from it stems the duties, obligations, and responsibilities of family members. The most important Islamic teaching on this subject is that people must not claim a child as theirs if they adopted that child, and that children must not falsely claim to be the real son or daughter of a particular person if they are not, and that adopted children cannot be given the family name of their foster parents, because doing that would mask the adopted children's true identity. And of course, natural children have more claim to any inheritance than adopted children. God says in the Qur'an what means, [Allah has not made for any man two hearts within him; nor has He made your wives whose backs you liken to the backs of your mothers as your mothers, nor has He made those whom you assert to be your sons your real sons; these are the words of your mouths; and Allah speaks the truth and He guides to the way. Proclaim their real parentage. That will be more equitable in the sight of Allah. And if ye know not their fathers, then they are your brethren in the faith, and your clients. And there is no sin for you in the mistakes that ye make unintentionally, but what your hearts purpose (that will be a sin for you). Allah is ever Forgiving, Merciful.] (Al-Ahzab 33:4-5) On the other hand, if an orphan or abandoned child is looked after by a family as an act of compassion; being given shelter, food, clothing, and other needs, then this is legal and indeed a great act of humanity for which Allah promises great rewards. Though the adopted children do not inherit on the same footing as the natural children, it is commendable for the adopter to bequeath something to them. The importance of the family in Islam comes from its allocated function in preserving the human race by procreation. Also, it is responsible for protecting the morals of the society and individuals by providing the only legitimate avenue for the satisfaction of the sexual urge. Moreover, the family has an important role in providing the socialization and value orientation of children, and in providing social and economic security. Finally, making up a family motivates individuals to work hard, sacrifice their own welfare, and become beneficent for the sake of their family. * Adapted from a lecture in Dr. Jamal Badawi’s Islamic Teachings series. To listen to the lecture, clickhere source

^^LoL NG Waar afsomaaligayu waa xaga hore'e, adigu waxaad u'baahantahay buug dhan oo afsomaaliga turjuma inaad liqdid. Badeeya ha so galin

^^I do see signs of improvement. You will be the next Hadraawi in no time I tell ya

Interesting journey thus far,,,keep us posted JB

^^do expose

^^or a proper fruit cocktail, or fresh xabxab juice,,,,,,,,

<-------Doesnt need a CV

NG, I see your tired of the humous and grilled kebabs ps have you gone off the 'caseer' aswell?

By Jawdeh Wazwaz Being a Muslim means being grateful for your health, nothing can replace it, not even all the wealth It means to fear Allah, night and day, and to always reflect, one day you'll perish away It means to pray qiyam il layl, out of love and desire, doing that for Allah will raise your iman much higher It means to not even say one harsh word to your father and mother, to honor your sisters and even your brothers It means to believe without doubt in the unseen, and to thank Allah for this glorious deen It means to establish the prayer 5 times a day, the key to heaven, there's no other way It means to spend from your wealth to those who live on the streets, who have no place to live, who are called dead beats It means to honor all the prophets, and imitate their deeds, respect their accomplishments, and follow their lead It means to excel in learning Islamic knowledge, for the sake of Allah, and to convey it with humility, for it belongs to Allah We don't benefit Islam by being Muslims, but it is Islam that elevates the soul, it gives us our sense of purpose, our ultimate goal It means to treat your neighbor with love, as if related to you by blood, for both of us came straight from mud It means to honor women by lowering our gaze in their sight, and recite D'uaa in the middle of the night It means to glorify Allah, and praise him year after year, and to always know His Judgment is near It means to go to the Mosque, and thank God for the Nur He gave you, to keep begging Him to guide you and eventually save you From the punishment of the fire, and the punishment of the grave, so keep walking with reflection or you won't be saved Islam, what a beauty, what does it do to a person, it relieves him from stress, so he can stop cursing Islam calls us to piety, to worship one deity, which would help us relieve our anxiety Islam is a reward, not a punishment or pain, so read the Koran with reflection, or you'll be inhumane Being a servant of God is the most precious role, it takes you out of darkness, nourishes your soul What more can you ask for, than having contentment, but when you ignore God, you'll feel resentment Should I oppress Jews and Christians and every other faith, does the Koran allow me to have such hate? Does Islam allow me to cheat people from what's rightfully theirs, and if I steal, is that Islamically fair? Does Islam order Muslims to convert people out of force, to know the answer, you must read it's source It's called the Holy Koran, a book so divine, yet Most Non-Muslims never gave it any time To examine its teachings, with an open mind and heart, but instead they attack it, and rip it apart How can we blame them for their actions, when we failed at representing Gods religion, instead we criticize each other daily, were getting in divisions So Muslims, we have to spark a fire of love that transcends, to every Non-Muslim, not just our friends Islam is not just for Muslims, but for all races and faces on earth, if you never accept it, you'll never know what its worth So I send you tidings of peace, and I will continue my mission, of spreading this glorious deen, which gave me a vision I want to make a confession, before we have another recession, if we don't strive for God, He will implement another succession A succession of new people who will die in jihad, and people who, when hear the Koran, are very glad So exchange your tears for hope of a brighter tomorrow, because Islam doesn't guarantee there won't be sorrow Allah didn't say heaven is easy to achieve, you have to be active, it's not enough to just believe Did the prophets suffer, or did they escape the trials they faced, so if we follow in their footsteps, their struggles we must taste So being a Muslim means to conquer the weakness in your soul, not to follow your passions, getting trapped in a bigger whole It means to spend the last ten nights of Ramadan in prostration, to honor Allah with a koranic recitation How much more time will we waste, before we leave this world of toil, and get punished in hell as it boils So always ponder that today might be your last day, so fulfill your contract with Allah, or he will leave you astray Muslims, please awaken, from this sleep you've been taken, and get serious with your lives, or else one day you'll be forsaken It's better to live in the streets and having God on your side, so stop swerving in wrong directions, and start to abide Abide to His laws, for Allah was always Kareem, just keep calling on Allah no matter how difficult life may seem When you wake up on the Day of Judgment after been sleeping many years, you won't realize how long you've been asleep, for you'll be filled with tears So if you're a Muslim, then don't damage mother earth, take care of her soil, for one day you'll return to her dirt Enjoy helping people, and take the bitterness out of your heart, for if you intend to stay devious, it will tear you apart So make friends, and establish justice in society, always preach to people that there is only one deity.

Being a Muslim By Jawdeh Wazwaz Being a Muslim means to always smile, no matter how difficult life gets, for it will last a while It means greeting people of all ethnicities and races, with a salutation of peace, smiling at all faces It means helping the elderly, and the one in need, and to give in charity, not to be overcome by greed It means, to desire perfection, in piety and gratitude. Always be humble and not have an attitude It means to obey your parents, not to raise your voice in their sight, and to walk away if someone wants to fight So am I a Muslim by action, or a Muslim by name, the first is a believer and the other is a shame I must never become arrogant, boastful, or proud, nor utter silly words, or speak loud I must respect all Christians, regardless of their behavior, even though we say Jesus wasn't a savior I can't transgress in the earth, I know right from wrong, so I better correct my past, I won't live too long Before I'm 6 feet under, and taking nothing with me but my deeds, no more things to worry about, no more needs As I face my Lord, did I really prepare for that day, from the way I lived my life, it seems I was astray So even as a Muslim, I will be punished for my sins if I fail, by going to hell, which ain't nothing like jail So I'm not special for being a Muslim at all, if my actions are on the down fall If people don't see Islam in my actions, then what do I have to propose, nothing good in my image, which people oppose So I stand up in prayer, asking God to give me His light, to walk humbly on earth, and to make things right God created us weak, and in distress, so we can always turn to Him when our life is a mess God created us to worship Him, not that He is in need, nor will He ever be in need for us, for were only a seed God taught us the way we should compose our life, to live in harmony and not cause strife He taught us our purpose and gave us direction; He is tired of hearing everyone's objection Thinking that we can develop better standards of living than our Lord, if you live life this way, you won't get a reward So I better stop hurting people, God even counts a woman's tears, while many other people remain in fear Fear of dying with no shelter, nor food, many more are depressed, in a delusional mood So I must extend a helping hand to establish goodness to humanity, because too many people are living in insanity If someone wrongs me, must I retaliate and fight, can I just forgive them, if I have the light The light of Allah that He gives to whom He please, the only one who gets it are those who bow on their knees To acknowledge to the creator, that you are indebted to His service, to not get caught up in life, always feeling nervous The world wasn't made just for me, we all have a share in its joys and sorrow, so let's focus on today, for nothings promised tomorrow So a Muslim who preaches the message must resemble goodness and piety, and to acknowledge there is only one Deity His name is Allah., He is the One and Only, if you don't worship Him, you will remain lonely He is the One who brings life to what was dead, so calling on Him at night, while you lay in bed And thank Him, o Muslims, for all of His gifts, for if you remain ungrateful, His punishment is swift God put us in this world to see how we react, but we failed many times, that's a fact.

LoL, well I have a better shot than Roberto Carlos . Its a beautiful place in the summer unlike Liverpool aka Leningrad 1942

Wow, all that noise advocating for a new policy on obtaining a measly passport bought and sold more times than Christian Vieri! What the so-called ‘nationalist’ doesn’t want you to know is the ‘republic’ is no longer. Cries of ‘the ‘secessionist’ only reinforces their flawed and somewhat ancient perception that such a republic actually exists. No control what so ever of an area the size of the UAE makes redundant this notion of an existing ‘republic’ never mind the fact that the ‘republic’ is currently occupied by a neighbour who also happens to ‘own’ one point of the five-point star on the ‘republics’ flag. These aspects of the ‘republic’ will not be discussed by the ‘nationalist’ but rather smudged over with cries of ‘he’s a secessionist’ or the SNM ‘gangs’ blahdi blah. This is the usual cry when challenged. So much so that they have resorted to fictitious and incoherent spurts just to gloss over their disappointments. Any discussion about the situation in Puntland and the authorities there will also be avoided in case this autonomous state is revealed to be but a ‘regime’ not serving the people and conspiring to sell off any natural resources without any sort of agreement at local level. US warships recently bombed this region. No debates as to who and why or the sovereign ‘republics’ lack of say in the matter have yet been discussed. The ‘republic’ being led by the same people who have had it in anarchy for 17 years will also be avoided by the poster as its not in line with his ‘nationalist’ stance. These ‘nationalists’ are spoon fed ‘nationalism’ and lack the true meaning of it. Now, back to the passport. As I said, it only takes good, clean and crisp bank notes to obtain anything. A Somali passport only requires the promise of the bank notes. Besides I’m sure the occupier will chain Dr Donkey Whisperer from issuing such a policy.

NG I agree with the part about their sources. The rest does not really matter that much. It's a tabloid paper read by 500,000 Britons (that is less than the entire population of Sheffield by the way). Heh, according to the 2001 Census the population then was 513,234 (or should I put a decimal point in there ) and the population of Liverpool was 439,476 . Sheffield is the fourth city after Manchester (yuck) Anyway, I'm sure you two are aware of the Sheepskin Contract signed by the Brits in Somaliland

Istithmar buys QE2 for $100m By Shakir Husain, Staff Reporter Dubai: Dubai investment firm Istithmar has bought the legendary Queen Elizabeth 2 (QE2) cruise ship, the world's fastest merchant vessel, from Britain's Cunard Line for $100 million and will turn it into a floating luxury hotel at the Palm Jumeirah. The 38-year-old QE2 will cease being an ocean-going passenger vessel when it is delivered to Dubai in November 2008. "From 2009, the vessel will be berthed at a specially-constructed pier at the Palm Jumeirah to create a luxury floating hotel, retail and entertainment destination," Istithmar said yesterday. Cunard, part of US-based Carnival Corporation, said the deal has secured the vessel's future "for others to see." Attractive -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Dubai World has come to us with a proposal that is very attractive. QE2 is an older vessel and we have to remember at some point she will have to leave the fleet," Carol Marlow, managing director of Cunard, told Gulf News. The 70,327-tonne ship is 963 feet long and has a top speed of 32.5 knots, making it the fastest cruise ship. "She can go backwards faster than most ships can go forward," Marlow said. It is the second time in less than two years that a Dubai-based company has acquired an iconic British maritime asset. In March last year, Istithmar's sister company DP World, part of Dubai World, bought 163-year-old P&O for $6.8 billion. Istithmar is also the owner of London-based firm Inchcape Shipping Services, for which it paid $285 million in January 2006. "Dubai is a maritime nation and we understand the rich heritage of the QE2," Dubai World chairman Sultan Ahmad Bin Sulayem. He said the ship will become "one of the must-see experiences of Dubai." Nakheel spokesman Charlie Taylor said the Palm Jumeirah hopes to receive an estimated 20,000 visitors per day and the ship hotel will be a special addition to the 32 hotels planned hotels on the Palm. According to information on the Cunard website, it was built at a cost of £29 million (Dh211.8 million). Cunard said since the ship's launch by Queen Elizabeth II in September 1967, it has spent "15 times that amount in refitting." Istithmar said its refurbishment programme will aim to recreate the ship's original interior decor and fittings. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Your comments That is great news for me because I have never been in a ship, so it is indeed a great chance for me to travel through the QE2. Sayeed Abu Dhabi,UAE I also cruised on QE2 to Norway last summer and it was obvious she was not going to remain in service after 2009. I love this vessel and I am very glad she will be preserved like her sister QM and not allowed to rot like QE. Leaving her in the UK would be no guarantee of her survival - book me in for 2009! Helen Dubai,UAE My wife and I cruised on the QE2 last year and visited Norway. This was our first ever cruise. I feel saddened that she has been sold. She should stay in the UK and be an attraction for those who cannot afford a holiday on board. Very sad day for the UK! David Lampeter,Wales, UK gulfnews.com

Discovery crew begins filming in Dubai Staff Report Dubai: The Discovery Channel has begun filming a documentary series in Dubai on vehicle customisation stars and experts, the West Coast Customs. The show will follow their daily trials and tribulations as they meet deadlines and face complicated challenges and customisation requests and will include, in detail, their work on the cars of UAE's high status individuals, according to a press release. The show will be similar in theme and structure to the Discovery Channel's popular shows Orange County Choppers and American Hot Rod. The new Middle East production centre, currently under construction in Dubai, will be featured in the show. The show will begin airing in October and will run weekly for 14 weeks. West Coast Customs was recently signed by Al Ghussein Global Investments, a UAE-based investment firm, to a 20-year Middle East and North Africa exclusive master franchise agreement. The new West Coast Customs Middle East centre will be the first-ever fully operational WCC design and production centre outside of the US and is scheduled to be fully operational by summer of this year. "While Pimp My Ride was a great success and has become somewhat of a global phenomenon, we wanted to show the fans and the public that fixing up old cars is not the only thing we do, says Rami Al Malak, Managing Partner of WCC ME. The team of customisation wizards shot to fame after the massive global success of MTV's hit show "Pimp My Ride" in which the West Coast Customs team surprises an unsuspecting member of the public and drastically fix up and customise their cars. For further updates log on to www.wcc-me.com gulfnews.com

Originally posted by Faarax-Brown: 1. Michael Jordan & all things Nike, The Matatu life in Kenya,the Arrival of Beautiful Somalis from Somalia. MJ and the Bulls in those epic NBA Fianls vs the Jazz. One would sleep at 6am but well worth it. An influx of Somalis (early 90s). We went from having no football team to having 6 or 7 in the space of one summer. That was before Somali Community Centres/Organisations got greedy. Sheh, yes a gas guzler. I would be despised if i drove this thing in the UK.

Edgware Road will shut down. Sheikh Zayed Rd, Jumeira Rd, Outh Metha Rd will remain open akhi.

^^Come on, I know you want to wear that prestinly starched white dishdasha with plenty of aftersahve and a hands free device in your ear on a regular basis again. Besides, tax free cash, af carabi for the kids, beach, no BS headlines to read in the morning, no depressing news in the evening. Its all good i ya. Plus July 1st is fast approaching in London

tp

dp

The people of Palestine must finally be allowed to determine their own fate The drivers of violence in Gaza are clearly external. When all Palestinians can vote for sovereign rule, peace will be within reach Karma Nabulsi Monday June 18, 2007 The Guardian There is nothing uglier and more brutal to the human spirit, nothing more lethal to that universal hope for freedom, than to see a people struggling for liberty for such a long time begin to kill each other. How and why did we get here? Above all: how do we get out of here? These are the questions everyone watching events unfold in Gaza and the West Bank are asking themselves. But before answering them, it is essential to understand just what we are witnessing. This is not at its heart a civil war, nor is it an example of the upsurge of regional Islamism. It is not reducible to an atavistic clan or fratricidal blood-letting, nor to a power struggle between warring factions. This violence cannot be characterised as a battle between secular moderates who seek a negotiated settlement and religious terrorist groups. And this is not, above all, a miserable situation that has simply slipped unnoticed into disaster. The many complex steps that led us here today were largely the outcome of the deliberate policies of a belligerent occupying power backed by the US. As the UN envoy for the Middle East peace process, Alvaro de Soto, remarked in his confidential report leaked last week in this paper: "The US clearly pushed for a confrontation between Fatah and Hamas, so much so that, a week before Mecca, the US envoy declared twice in an envoys meeting in Washington how much 'I like this violence', referring to the near-civil war that was erupting in Gaza in which civilians were being regularly killed and injured." How did we get here? The institutions created in occupied Palestine in the 1990s were shaped to bring us to this very point of collapse. The Palestinian Authority, created through negotiations between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organisation in 1993, was not meant to last more than five years - just until the institutions of an independent state were built. Instead, its capacities were frozen and it was co-opted into performing the role of a security agency for the Israelis, who were still occupying Palestine by military force, and serving as a disbursement agency for the US and EU's funding of that occupation. The PA had not attained a single one of the freedoms it was meant to provide, including the most important one, the political liberty of a self-determining sovereign body. Why did we get here? Once the exact nature of its purpose emerged, the Palestinians began to resist this form of external control. Israel then invaded the West Bank cities again and put President Yasser Arafat's compound under a two-year siege, which ended with his death. Under those conditions of siege the international "reform" process created a new institution of a prime minister's office and attempted to unify the security apparatus under it, rather than that of the president, whom they could no longer control. Mahmoud Abbas was the first prime minister, and the Israeli- and US-backed Fatah strongman, Mohammed Dahlan, was appointed head of security. After the death of Arafat, Abbas was nominated to the leadership of the PLO, and directly elected as the president of the PA. Arafat had followed the strategy of all successful liberation movements: a combination of resistance and negotiation until the conclusion of a comprehensive peace treaty. Abbas's strategy was of an entirely different order: no resistance in any form and a complete reliance on the good faith of the Israelis. After a year of achieving nothing - indeed Ariel Sharon refused to negotiate with him and Israeli colonisation was intensified - the Palestinian people's support for this humiliating policy of submission wore thin. Hamas, polling about 20% in previous years, suddenly won 43% of the vote in 2006. This popular reaction was a response to the failure of Abbas's strategy as much as the failure of Fatah to present any plausible national programme whatsoever. The Palestinians thus sought representation that would at least reflect their condition of occupation and dispossession. Although the elections were recognised as free and fair, the US and Britain immediately took the lead in applying sanctions against the Hamas government, denying aid - which was only needed in the first place because the occupation had destroyed the economy - and refusing to deal with it until it accepted what had become, under these new circumstances, impossible "conditions". The US administration continued to treat Fatah as if it had won the election rather than lost it - funding, arming, and directly encouraging agents within it to reverse the outcome of that democratic election by force. The Palestinian president brought pressure to bear on Hamas to change its position on recognition of Israel. Palestinians refused to participate in this externally driven coup - indeed, the vast majority of Fatah cadres rejected outright an enterprise so clearly directed at destroying the Palestinian body politic. Both the prisoners' document and the Mecca agreement signed in Saudi Arabia creating a national unity government took place because Palestinian society insisted on a national framework. Yet a small group has brought us to this point. The outcome is what we have before us today, similar to what the Americans were seeking to create in Iraq: the total exclusion of democratic practices and principles, the attempt to impose an oligarchy on a fragmented political society, a weakened and terrorised people, a foreign rule through warlords and strongmen. How do we get out of here? For the west, the path is both obvious and simple. It needs to allow the Palestinians their own representation. It can look to the terms of the Mecca agreement to see the shape that would take, and to the 2006 prisoners' document for the political platform the Palestinians hold. It needs to urgently convene a real international peace conference, which no one has attempted since 1991, as recommended in the Baker commission's report on the Iraq war, de Soto's end of mission report, and as championed by President Jimmy Carter. And it needs only to look to the Beirut Arab peace initiative to find everything it has been seeking, if indeed it is seeking peace. For the Palestinians, the path is also clear: we have come to the end of the challenging experiment of self-rule under military occupation. We now need to dissolve the PA, mobilise to convene direct elections to our only national parliament, the Palestine National Council, in order to enfranchise the entire political spectrum of Palestinians, and thereby recapture the PLO, transforming it into the popular and democratic institution it once had a chance of becoming. This is already a popular demand of all Palestinians. Palestinians in exile must take their turn again in lifting the siege inside Palestine, as the inside did for the outside after the almost total destruction of the PLO in 1982 in Lebanon and the siege of the refugee camps there in 1986: we are one people. The Palestinians have a long history of struggle in which each generation has had to break out of the coercive prison imposed by British colonial, Arab, Israeli, and now American rule, and we will do it again. · Karma Nabulsi is fellow in politics and international relations at St Edmund Hall, Oxford University karmanabulsi@hotmail.com http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2105483,00.html

Robert Fisk: Welcome to 'Palestine' Published: 16 June 2007 How troublesome the Muslims of the Middle East are. First, we demand that the Palestinians embrace democracy and then they elect the wrong party - Hamas - and then Hamas wins a mini-civil war and presides over the Gaza Strip. And we Westerners still want to negotiate with the discredited President, Mahmoud Abbas. Today "Palestine" - and let's keep those quotation marks in place - has two prime ministers. Welcome to the Middle East. Who can we negotiate with? To whom do we talk? Well of course, we should have talked to Hamas months ago. But we didn't like the democratically elected government of the Palestinian people. They were supposed to have voted for Fatah and its corrupt leadership. But they voted for Hamas, which declines to recognise Israel or abide by the totally discredited Oslo agreement. No one asked - on our side - which particular Israel Hamas was supposed to recognise. The Israel of 1948? The Israel of the post-1967 borders? The Israel which builds - and goes on building - vast settlements for Jews and Jews only on Arab land, gobbling up even more of the 22 per cent of "Palestine" still left to negotiate over ? And so today, we are supposed to talk to our faithful policeman, Mr Abbas, the "moderate" (as the BBC, CNN and Fox News refer to him) Palestinian leader, a man who wrote a 600-page book about Oslo without once mentioning the word "occupation", who always referred to Israeli "redeployment" rather than "withdrawal", a "leader" we can trust because he wears a tie and goes to the White House and says all the right things. The Palestinians didn't vote for Hamas because they wanted an Islamic republic - which is how Hamas's bloody victory will be represented - but because they were tired of the corruption of Mr Abbas's Fatah and the rotten nature of the "Palestinian Authority". I recall years ago being summoned to the home of a PA official whose walls had just been punctured by an Israeli tank shell. All true. But what struck me were the gold-plated taps in his bathroom. Those taps - or variations of them - were what cost Fatah its election. Palestinians wanted an end to corruption - the cancer of the Arab world - and so they voted for Hamas and thus we, the all-wise, all-good West, decided to sanction them and starve them and bully them for exercising their free vote. Maybe we should offer "Palestine" EU membership if it would be gracious enough to vote for the right people? All over the Middle East, it is the same. We support Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan, even though he keeps warlords and drug barons in his government (and, by the way, we really are sorry about all those innocent Afghan civilians we are killing in our "war on terror" in the wastelands of Helmand province). We love Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, whose torturers have not yet finished with the Muslim Brotherhood politicians recently arrested outside Cairo, whose presidency received the warm support of Mrs - yes Mrs - George W Bush - and whose succession will almost certainly pass to his son, Gamal. We adore Muammar Gaddafi, the crazed dictator of Libya whose werewolves have murdered his opponents abroad, whose plot to murder King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia preceded Tony Blair's recent visit to Tripoli - Colonel Gaddafi, it should be remembered, was called a "statesman" by Jack Straw for abandoning his non-existent nuclear ambitions - and whose "democracy" is perfectly acceptable to us because he is on our side in the "war on terror". Yes, and we love King Abdullah's unconstitutional monarchy in Jordan, and all the princes and emirs of the Gulf, especially those who are paid such vast bribes by our arms companies that even Scotland Yard has to close down its investigations on the orders of our prime minister - and yes, I can indeed see why he doesn't like The Independent's coverage of what he quaintly calls "the Middle East". If only the Arabs - and the Iranians - would support our kings and shahs and princes whose sons and daughters are educated at Oxford and Harvard, how much easier the "Middle East" would be to control. For that is what it is about - control - and that is why we hold out, and withdraw, favours from their leaders. Now Gaza belongs to Hamas, what will our own elected leaders do? Will our pontificators in the EU, the UN, Washington and Moscow now have to talk to these wretched, ungrateful people (fear not, for they will not be able to shake hands) or will they have to acknowledge the West Bank version of Palestine (Abbas, the safe pair of hands) while ignoring the elected, militarily successful Hamas in Gaza? It's easy, of course, to call down a curse on both their houses. But that's what we say about the whole Middle East. If only Bashar al-Assad wasn't President of Syria (heaven knows what the alternative would be) or if the cracked President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad wasn't in control of Iran (even if he doesn't actually know one end of a nuclear missile from the other). If only Lebanon was a home-grown democracy like our own little back-lawn countries - Belgium, for example, or Luxembourg. But no, those pesky Middle Easterners vote for the wrong people, support the wrong people, love the wrong people, don't behave like us civilised Westerners. So what will we do? Support the reoccupation of Gaza perhaps? Certainly we will not criticise Israel. And we shall go on giving our affection to the kings and princes and unlovely presidents of the Middle East until the whole place blows up in our faces and then we shall say - as we are already saying of the Iraqis - that they don't deserve our sacrifice and our love. How do we deal with a coup d'état by an elected government? http://news.independent.co.uk/fisk/article2663199.ece

Robert Fisk: Sinister strategy behind an MP's murder Published: 15 June 2007 Everybody was obsessed by figures. True, the cortège was proceeding towards the Chatila martyrs' cemetery, true Saad Hariri - the son of the murdered ex-premier whose killers are now to be tried by the United Nations - walked in the vanguard. But it was the numbers that mattered. A phone call came through on my mobile from a Lebanese MP - readers may debate his identity - when the carbonised skeleton of Walid Eido was still hot in his bombed car. "Robert, they only need to kill three more and Siniora has no parliamentary majority." True. The first words of L'Orient-Le Jour newspaper's lead story yesterday began: "70...69...68." If the MPs supporting the government of Fouad Siniora fall to 65, there is no more "majority" to support in parliament. So no wonder they were claiming yesterday that the pro-Syrian President, Emile Lahoud, must permit by-elections for the murdered assembly members, that such elections would be held even if Mr Lahoud declined to give his assent. MPs might be forgiven for losing their seats to popular dissatisfaction in Lebanon, but why should they lose their seats because of bombs or because of the accuracy - and here we speak of the ex-minister Pierre Gemayel - of an AK-47 rifle? Eido's funeral yesterday - along with that of his son, Khaled (another eight died with them in the car-bombing in west Beirut on Wednesday), was a wearying, dismal, painful affair. "Omar, Omar," the crowds cried, clinging to their caliph, and "Hizbollah out of the southern suburbs," a demand flourished with a series of obscene references to Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, the Hizbollah leader. This was a Sunni funeral and they buried their dead beside the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Sheikh al-Husseini, who tried to maintain the existence of Palestine (and frolicked with Adolf Hitler, to the disgust of Israel and the West). Saad Hariri - more noble in vision than he tends to be in words - walked at the top of the procession. It marched past bullet-scarred buildings from the civil war - a ghostly reminder of everything we hope to avoid in the coming days -- and past the 1941 French war cemetery many of whose Free French "liberators" were Muslim Algerians and Indo-Chinese (as we would have called them then) whose Petainist French adversaries left for France under a truce that allowed them to fight again against the Allies. Walid Eido was a respected judge, a Sunni opponent of Syria, a man who had called Hizbollah's "camp" down town an "occupation" and he was murdered, as so many of Syria's opponents have been in Lebanon. No, of course there is no proof that Syria did the deed. Any more than there is proof that all the other opponents of Syria were murdered by Damascus (Hariri? Gibran? Kassir? Gemayel? Now Eido?). And as usual, there are no arrests. Martyr, martyr, martyr; that's what the press keep calling the Fallen of Lebanon. I guess it's easier that way. http://news.independent.co.uk/fisk/article2659710.ece

Robert Fisk: Sinister strategy behind an MP's murder Published: 15 June 2007 Everybody was obsessed by figures. True, the cortège was proceeding towards the Chatila martyrs' cemetery, true Saad Hariri - the son of the murdered ex-premier whose killers are now to be tried by the United Nations - walked in the vanguard. But it was the numbers that mattered. A phone call came through on my mobile from a Lebanese MP - readers may debate his identity - when the carbonised skeleton of Walid Eido was still hot in his bombed car. "Robert, they only need to kill three more and Siniora has no parliamentary majority." True. The first words of L'Orient-Le Jour newspaper's lead story yesterday began: "70...69...68." If the MPs supporting the government of Fouad Siniora fall to 65, there is no more "majority" to support in parliament. So no wonder they were claiming yesterday that the pro-Syrian President, Emile Lahoud, must permit by-elections for the murdered assembly members, that such elections would be held even if Mr Lahoud declined to give his assent. MPs might be forgiven for losing their seats to popular dissatisfaction in Lebanon, but why should they lose their seats because of bombs or because of the accuracy - and here we speak of the ex-minister Pierre Gemayel - of an AK-47 rifle? Eido's funeral yesterday - along with that of his son, Khaled (another eight died with them in the car-bombing in west Beirut on Wednesday), was a wearying, dismal, painful affair. "Omar, Omar," the crowds cried, clinging to their caliph, and "Hizbollah out of the southern suburbs," a demand flourished with a series of obscene references to Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, the Hizbollah leader. This was a Sunni funeral and they buried their dead beside the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Sheikh al-Husseini, who tried to maintain the existence of Palestine (and frolicked with Adolf Hitler, to the disgust of Israel and the West). Saad Hariri - more noble in vision than he tends to be in words - walked at the top of the procession. It marched past bullet-scarred buildings from the civil war - a ghostly reminder of everything we hope to avoid in the coming days -- and past the 1941 French war cemetery many of whose Free French "liberators" were Muslim Algerians and Indo-Chinese (as we would have called them then) whose Petainist French adversaries left for France under a truce that allowed them to fight again against the Allies. Walid Eido was a respected judge, a Sunni opponent of Syria, a man who had called Hizbollah's "camp" down town an "occupation" and he was murdered, as so many of Syria's opponents have been in Lebanon. No, of course there is no proof that Syria did the deed. Any more than there is proof that all the other opponents of Syria were murdered by Damascus (Hariri? Gibran? Kassir? Gemayel? Now Eido?). And as usual, there are no arrests. Martyr, martyr, martyr; that's what the press keep calling the Fallen of Lebanon. I guess it's easier that way. http://news.independent.co.uk/fisk/article2659710.ece