1) It seems to be a considerably more racist state than Israel - since, Wikipedia tells us, "The UAE's population of 4.041 million (2003) includes more than 3.23 million non nationals." Clearly not a state for all its people then - but a state for the ethnic caste that makes up the 7 emirates. (an apartheid state, perhaps?) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Uni...d_Arab_Emirates
2) Neverthelss, UAE seems to be making moves towards remedying the situation, since its official website announced in 2003 that "The Interior Ministry is encouraging all illegal residents to report to any Naturalisation and Residency Department at any time as the door is still open for them to leave." "The authorities have announced that they will begin a massive crackdown and search for those illegals who are still in the country. The Ministry of Interior is scanning the irises of those leaving. Those found living in the country illegally from now will be punished under Federal Law No. 13 of 1996. They will face a maximum jail term of 10 years and Dh10,000 fine." http://www.uaeinteract.com/news/...ault.asp?
ID=245
3) UAE is ruled by 7 unelected Emirs and women are excluded from its Federal National Council. http://www.hartford-hwp.com/arch...ves/51/
180.html
Elf, your obsession with Israel is very silly. Why do you think that a racist, undemocratic, mysogenist "state" would want to put pressure on its airline, to put pressure on Arsenal (Arsenal! a bloody football club in North London) to oppose the Israeli travel agency's bid to adverstise at the new Highbury stadium?
You are a man obsessed with the evils of the Jewish state. And you don't even notice the evils of any other state.
Indeed, you think that undemocratic, racist, mysogenist regime in UAE somehow ought to be on the side of justice in Palestine. Why?
You are not motivated by human rights, Elf, neither are you motivated by socialist internationalism. You are simply a Jewish nationalist in reverse.
2) Ditto 1)
3) I knew that too.
I don't have an obsession about Israel. I run an anti-zionist blog. There are many zionist blogs and all of the mainstream media is pro-zionist. Where in the media are there apologists and liars for the UAE like there are for Israel? Where are the academic apologists for the UAE? Who likes the UAE or describes it as the "only democracy in the middle east" as is said about Israel? What is the point of blogging against tin-pot regimes that the mainstream media is happy to expose? I prefer to blog about things the media isn't so happy to expose.
I didn't expect the UAE to support the Palestinian cause out of anything other then expediency but I would expect some protest against them in the Arab world.
This "Jewish nationalist" (whether inverted or not) business seems to originate from David Hirsh. He accused me of that once. I don't understand the relevance of that except David Hirsh seems to have a problem with Jews. You might want to style yourself on someone more credible.
Also you might want to consider the fact that whilst you accuse me of not caring about human rights, it was you had to google the UAE. How did such a caring soul as you not know that all of the Arab regimes are run by self-seeking dictatorial reactionaries?
But none of them are based on colonial settlement and ethnic cleansing combined. You see whilst the Arab states had their borders imposed on them. Palestine had a population foisted on it and a population removed. And the removal and replacement continues.
Apart from being an outrageous hypocrite with your plea for the human rights of people you had to google today to know anything about, you are also lacking in basic understanding of the issues here or you are deliberately dishonest; or, of course, both. You should write for Engage, not me.
Edited By Siteowner
I agree with what you say about Emirates. Its a highly illiberal unpleasant dictatorship (but as far as dictatorships go - its not too bad). The fact that it does not grant citizenship to foreign works - as you point out is grotesque. In most western democracies it takes about 10 years - but Arab countries don’t seem to do this.
I think the left is disproportionately concerned with Israel for couple of reasons. There are many other countries which have worse human rights records - the same was true of Apartheid. Apartheid governments applied their laws pretty reasonably on the whole. The police responded disproportionate to the Sharpeville massacre killing 69, but compared to many other human rights abuses in the world at the time, this was fairly trivial.
Israel is singled out largely as was South Africa because its oppression is colonialist and racist in nature – not the extent of its oppression. It also is part of the Western sphere and proclaims itself to be a democracy. Western countries undoubtedly get more criticisms for their human rights abuses than non-western countries – e.g. Russia and USA. As a westerner I operate in and have access to Western mass media and this influences my priorities.
I notice that you did not defend the extensive and systematic human rights violations and abuses of Israel. So do you not defend them or do you not think they don’t exist?
Having been probably the only person here to have lived in the UAE, i can tell you it has problems with rascism, and citizenship, but a state which withholds citizenship from foreign workers is not the same as a state that withholds citizenship from the indigenous population of that land. HENCE dumbass, the obsession with Israel. Further, the situation of the Gulf countries is not as simple as people like you would like to make out (i.e nasty oppressive arab regime). In fact, the UAE has done amazingly well at sharing its oil wealth amongst its own citizens, who were citizens BEFORE the oil welath, and didnt flock there after the oil boom. Perhaps you should stop merely googling things as a main source of your teeny tiny information (to add to the pro-Zionist brainwashing).
delete my comments. Obviously, I'm not going to discuss with you on
that basis.
You won't discuss with me (or others who have responded to your post) because either you are not up to it or there is no case for Israel or both.
The post of yours that I deleted was quite lengthy - I think you bore people deliberately - but you didn't answer the questions you were asked and you sidestepped other points that were made. Even your last post - look at it - you refer to my questions that challenge you for answers. You then complain that I deleted your comments. Now if your comments were actually answers there wouldn't have been a problem.
So go on have another go. I dare you.
There are many bad countries on Earth, but only one is protected by my country in such a way.
My country, alone in the world, defends Israel in the UN, and with its veto, before the UN Security Council.
Not even the UK sticks up for Israel in the General Assembly.
The voting record is rather astounding, and I've looked through the record on all the votes (at least the ones in the last 40 years).
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