File under WTF! After a series of shark attacks off the coast of the Egyptian resort city of Sharm El-Sheikh, the local governor has insinuated that these attacks are part of an elaborate Israeli Mossad operation to ruin Egypt's tourism industry. Israel doesn't know whether to laugh or cry! Naturally, the South Sinai governor has not blamed far more obvious reasons for the sharks such as waste mismanagement whereby effluent and garbage is being dumped into the sea off his jurisdiction. Of course not... it must be far more sinister and more complicated than the bleeding obvious - and someone else's fault too.
According to consipracy theories circulating around the Middle East at the moment, due to the high level of criticism and negative exposure of Arab governments and the relatively lack of bad press for Israel, Wikileaks is obviously a Mossad plot and Julian Assange a Mossad agent. This Mossad theory is more of the result of diappointment from the expectations that Wikileaks being left-of-centre and the expected large number of cables emanating from the US embassy in Tel Aviv would naturally expose the Israeli government's ill policies and actions. In actual fact, other than hardly new revelations that Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is 'charming but never keeps his word' and that the Russians consider the Russian-speaking Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman as 'one of their own', the cables published by Wikileaks have shown that Israeli diplomats are at least honest and not prone to pussyfoot around (unlike most others), and that most of their concerns about Middle Eastern issues are grounded. The Arab governments in turn now look even more hypocritical and two-faced than before. Hence the anaolgy that Mossad must be all behind it.
The fact that these conspiracy theories exist is hardly surprising considering that many in the Arab and Muslim world still believe that it was Mossad who was behind 9/11.
But outlandish theories are not solely the preserve of the Arabs. Religious Jews are ones for making bold statements. The latest was made by the Head Rabbi of the Sephardi Jews in Israel and spiritual leader of the ultra-religious Shas party (part of the current ruling coalition)that the devastating Carmel fire was a result of insufficient Shabbat observance in the area. “Fires only happen in a place where Shabbat is desecrated,” he quoted from the Babylonian Talmud Shabbat tractate in his weekly sermon. “Homes were ruined," he continued, "entire neighborhoods wiped out, and it is not arbitrary. It is all divine providence.” Well, it was going to be either that or blaming the 'secular nature' of Israel for allowing gay rights for the reason for the fires. So there, it had nothing to do with the fact that Israel (and the whole region) is still experiencing Summer-like heat with temperatures hitting 30C at the beginning of what should be Winter and that there has been no significant rain since the beginning of the year.
Of course, not to be outdone, Shas's equivalent in Gaza, Hamas, also believes that the Carmel fires in Northern Israel were an act of God, only that it was punishment for what Israel does to the Palestinians. Ismael Haniyeh, Gaza's de-facto leader made the statement during a prayer session for rain. God doesn't seem to discriminate when it comes to droughts though.
No comments:
Post a Comment