Read related article in Malaysian Unplug's earlier posting:
President Barack Obama Receiving Marching Orders from the powerful Jewish Lobby

"... In your post under reply, you had said that you had expected me to do my homework, to grill and cross-examine my informant. Truth be told, Rocky, I did. And that’s what left me with the predicament.....

The predicament? Who to believe? You or my informant? Confronted with this predicament, I resolved to narrate both your assertion that no such meeting took place and the insistence of my informant to the contrary in the ‘Right to reply’ post....I am sorry if you feel I have fallen short of your expectations.

If I have erred in resolving my predicament referred to above by inclining towards my informant’s version rather than yours, I proffer my sincerest apologies...."
-Haris Ibrahim

Read here for more on his twin, Alfred E. Neuman

Hishammuddin Hussein aka Hisham E. Neumanuddin is living proof that Umno is dead.

He represents to the public just how deeply stupid and incapable Umno's next generation is, whatever the advantages they have been given.

• He's the young bangsawan with the yokel manners.
  
  
• He's the youth leader with the right wing rhetoric.
  
  
• He's the keris-wielder with a mind of mush.
  
  
• He's living proof of the principle of regression to the mean.

Hishammuddin: Compromise on contest possible
KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 28 — The suggestion by the Besut Umno division that candidates for the party’s deputy presidency compromise to avoid a contest is not a far-fetched one, said Umno Youth chief Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Tun Hussein.
He said the matter was not impossible as that was Umno’s way and that due consideration for determining the party’s leadership was not just Umno’s or the Barisan Nasional’s matter but should be a comprehensive matter.

“If there is something that can be discussed, we should discuss it, and what needs to be distributed after March we should distribute now,” said Hishammuddin who is in Mecca to perform the umrah.

Hishammuddin said this when commenting on the Besut Umno division’s suggestion that the candidates for the party’s deputy presidency and the vice-presidents’ post compromise ahead of the party’s polls in March.

In the same statement, Hishamuddin also commented on the suggestion by Umno’s discipline board’s chairman, Tan Sri Tengku Ahmad Rithaudeen Tengku Ismail, that the party restructure its organisation by abolishing its wings if it really wanted to do away with money politics.

Hishammuddin said the call was not acceptable and was impractical to implement.

“I respect him as an experienced veteran but in all humility I feel the suggestion is not right. If that were to happen it would portray that we are faced with great pressure.

“Party members have been in the wings from very early on. Several roles have been played effectively by the wings and we have seen a good organisational structure,” he said.

Hishammuddin said Tengku Ahmad Rithaudeen may have his own opinions and reasons on the matter but to resolve the matter there was no short-cut. — Bernama

President Obama's Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel
is an American Jew and also holds an Israeli citizenship.

1. maintain the “special relationship” between the United States and Israel,
   
   
2. increase pressure on a variety of Arab and Muslim states that are perceived as dangers to Israel, and
   
   
3. generally assure that Israel’s interests will always be first and foremost in the conduct of U.S. foreign policy, not only in the Middle East but around the globe.

Note: Why does, Wolf Blitzer, an American Jew and a former editor at AIPAC, the powerful Jewish lobby group, have a job as a news anchor at CNN ( for the Situation Room program)?

What does it mean to "objective" journalism when an individual with a record as a blatantly pro-Israel propagandist is afforded power to mediate information in CNN?

Wolf Blitzer, former editor of the AIPAC's newsletter, Near East Report, became Washington correspondent for the Jerusalem Post and then, with much help from "the lobby", was promoted to his current still expanding role at CNN. Read here for more

"What's the purpose of having Putera and Puteri, anyway if their role is merely put to subjudice?

Some described Puteri and Putera Umno members as 'GROs' to the seniors, having to become 'chaperons' at all party functions." Read here for more
- Jailani Harun

Umno should restructure its organisation by ABOLISHING the wings.

"Perhaps even having the Youth and Wanita wings should be weighed now. In England, there is no women's wing in the Conservative Party nor the Labour Party.

I was thinking whether there was a need for Puteri Umno and Putera Umno, as this means more money politics. They don't need political exposure that early.

Many of them are still in their teens and twenties. If they are preoccupied with politics, they won't be able to focus on anything else. "

"...I am in support of what Tengku Ahmad Rithauddeen said on Wednesday, that Putera and Puteri Umno should be disbanded.

What's the purpose of having Putera and Puteri, anyway if their role is merely put to subjudice?

Some described Puteri and Putera Umno members as 'GROs' to the seniors, having to become 'chaperons' at all party functions.

Now that there was a call for Barisan Nasional to become a Malaysian party instead of its each and every single component to fly their own flags and banners each time a general elections or a by-election takes place, Umno should also forego its Wanita wing.

Just make it Umno. All levels of position should be open to contest, both to men and women and youth. Those with high popularity and positive charismatic leadership talent will find out that money politics wont take a hand no more.

Less wings means lesser positions for contest. Money politics would be easier to monitor. Only then will the party regain its altitude. "

"...Pengerusi Lembaga Disiplin UMNO, Tengku Ahmad Rithauddeen (Ku Din) jelas dah bosan dengan gejala rasuah politik atau politik wang dalam UMNO. Apa tidaknya, pihaknya berdepan dengan satu masalah yang amat serius dan beliau tahu apa yang diperkatakannya.

Bubar saja Wanita, Pemuda dan Puteri UMNO jika ia dapat mengubati penyakit tersebut. Itulah luahan rasa yang terbit dari hati kecil Ku Din. Dia ikhlas dan sudah memikir semasak-masaknya sebelum mengeluarkan kata-kata itu.

Apakah reaksi atau kenyataan balas daripada para pemimpin UMNO? Ya, seperti yang dijangkakan mereka terus menempelak saranan Ku Din itu dengan bermacam alasan.

Sudah tentu Wanita, Pemuda dan Puteri UMNO tidak setuju. Saya tidak menyebut Putera UMNO kerana ia sekadar sebuah Biro di bawah Pemuda UMNO sama seperti Biro Sukan atau Biro Kebajikan. Jadi ia tidak penting.

Kenapa mereka tidak setuju? Saya tidak salahkan mereka kerana siapa mahu kehilangan lubuk yang begitu berharga? Sudah tentu tidak.

Selain membuka peluang kepada mereka untuk memegang jawatan dalam Wanita, Pemuda dan Puteri UMNO, mereka juga berpeluang mendapat pangkat (Datuk dan sebagainya) dan berpeluang menjadi wakil rakyat (MP mahupun ADUN) atau dilantik sebagai Senator dan berpeluang menjadi sama ada Setiausaha Politik, Setiausaha Parlimen, Timbalan Menteri ataupun Menteri.

Andai kata Pergerakan Wanita, Pemuda dan Puteri UMNO dimansuhkan, maka dengan sendirinya peluang untuk mereka menjadi pemimpin, mendapat pangkat dan memegang jawatan dalam pentadbiran negara mahupun negeri agak tipis malahan amat sukar.

Oleh itu, siang-siang lagi mereka menentang cadangan Ku Din yang disifatkan oleh Wanita UMNO sebagai perbuatan membakar kelambu.

Inilah budaya yang masih tebal di kalangan mereka yang memimpin UMNO sama ada di peringkat induk, mahupun Wanita, Pemuda ataupun Puteri.

Mereka harus memikirkan kelangsungan hidup UMNO dan bukan kepentingan-kepentingan lain terutama peribadi. Mereka harus sedar bahawa sokongan terhadap UMNO semakin hari semakin pudar bukan semakin kukuh.

Lihat saja perkembangan di Perak yang pada satu ketika kubu kuat UMNO yang kedua selepas Johor dan sebelum kemasukan Sabah.

Dunia sudah berubah tetapi UMNO masih dok tang tu! "

If the concert organisers do not heed this warning to cancel the concert, PAS youth will order all Muslim youth to turn up and protest the concert in order to prevent it from taking place.”

Kamaruzaman said it was not just about her dressing but her image, which was obscene and would bring down the moral of youths.

Asked if he had seen any of her concerts, he said he had not but had seen her pictures on the Internet and advertisements on television and they were indecent.

June 17, 2008: The youth wing of PAS opposed a planned concert by two popular female singers, saying their sexy attire and erotic dance moves tarnish the image of Islam.

Rock singer, better known as Ella, and pop singer Mas Idayu were due to perform July 6 at a concert in central Selangor state to kick off an annual football match.

The event is organized by Selangor's opposition-led government.

Mas Idayu is known as the "Queen of Dangdut," a genre of Indonesian popular music.

Ella is hailed as Malaysia's "Queen of Rock". PAS said their performance was inappropriate as the event would be attended by many youngsters. "Their dressing and performance don't reflect the true Malay culture. Their image is unacceptable to Islam. We are not against the concert but we feel the two singers should be replaced," The Associated Press was told.

PAS youths may stage a peaceful protest if the two singers are not banned from the concert, he warned. Read here for more

COMMENTARY

From Colleen McAllister : Read here

Remember back in August when Avril Lavigne’s Best Damn Tour concert stop in Malaysia was in danger of being cancelled because protestors thought she was “too sexy”?

WELL! Rihanna is having the same problem!

According to the same group, the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party, the “Disturbia” singer is “sexier and more dangerous” than Avril! The 20-year-old performer’s management say that she is “aware of the country’s regulations and the difficulties of doing a show.”

Other performers who have had problems performing in Malaysia include Gwen Stefani and the Pussycat Dolls.

Stefani made what she called a “major sacrifice” by not wearing outfits that showed a lot of skin while the Pussycat Dolls were fined almost $3,000 for going against regulations with their costumes.

Rihanna’s concert is scheduled for February 13 and is already selling a lot of tickets.

"...Western governments and most of the Western media have accepted a number of Israeli claims justifying the military assault on Gaza.

Let me state bluntly that each of these claims is a LIE.

Israel, not Hamas, violated the truce: Hamas undertook to STOP firing rockets into Israel; in return, Israel was to ease its throttlehold on Gaza. In fact, during the truce,Israel tightened it further.

Everyone seems to have forgotten that Hamas declared an end to suicide bombings and rocket fire when it decided to join the Palestinian political process, and largely stuck to it for more than a year. Bush publicly welcomed that decision, citing it as an example of the success of his campaign for democracy in the Middle East.

Hamas is no more a ‘terror organisation’ (Israel’s preferred term) than the Zionist movement was during its struggle for a Jewish homeland. In the late 1930s and 1940s, parties within the Zionist movement resorted to terrorist activities for strategic reasons.

In other words, when Jews target and kill innocent civilians to advance their national struggle, they are patriots. When their adversaries do so, they are terrorists.

Israel’s leaders (are) so determined to destroy Hamas because they believe that its leadership, unlike that of Fatah, cannot be intimidated into accepting a peace accord that establishes a Palestinian ‘state’ made up of territorially disconnected entities over which Israel would be able to retain permanent control.
- Henry Seigman

1. that Hamas consistently violated the six-month truce that Israel observed and then refused to extend it;
   
   
2. that Israel therefore had no choice but to destroy Hamas’s capacity to launch missiles into Israeli towns;
   
   
3. that Hamas is a terrorist organisation, part of a global jihadi network; and
   
   
4. that Israel has acted not only in its own defence but on behalf of an international struggle by Western democracies against this network.

Israel, not Hamas, violated the truce: Hamas undertook to stop firing rockets into Israel; in return, Israel was to ease its throttlehold on Gaza.

• Hamas had to cease its rocket assaults and prevent the firing of rockets by other groups such as Islamic Jihad (even Israel’s intelligence agencies acknowledged this had been implemented with surprising effectiveness), and
  
  
• Israel had to put a stop to its targeted assassinations and military incursions.

• This understanding was seriously violated on 4 November, when the IDF entered Gaza and killed six members of Hamas. Hamas responded by launching Qassam rockets and Grad missiles.
  
  
• Even so, it offered to extend the truce, but only on condition that Israel ended its blockade. Israel refused.
  
  
• It could have met its obligation to protect its citizens by agreeing to ease the blockade, but it didn’t even try.
  
  
• It cannot be said that Israel launched its assault to protect its citizens from rockets. It did so to protect its right to continue the strangulation of Gaza’s population.

Ariel Sharon gave Hamas the chance to set out on the path to statehood, a chance it refused to take; instead, it transformed Gaza into a launching-pad for firing missiles at Israel’s civilian population.

1. First, for all its failings, Hamas brought to Gaza a level of law and order unknown in recent years, and did so without the large sums of money that donors showered on the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority.
   
   
2. Hamas eliminated the violent gangs and warlords who terrorised Gaza under Fatah’s rule.
   
   
3. Non-observant Muslims, Christians and other minorities have more religious freedom under Hamas rule than they would have in Saudi Arabia, for example, or under many other Arab regimes.
   
   
4. The greater LIE is that Sharon’s withdrawal from Gaza was intended as a prelude to further withdrawals and a peace agreement. This is how Sharon’s senior adviser Dov Weisglass, who was also his chief negotiator with the Americans, described the withdrawal from Gaza, in an interview with Ha’aretz in August 2004:

   What I effectively agreed to with the Americans was that part of the settlements [i.e. the major settlement blocks on the West Bank] would not be dealt with at all, and the rest will not be dealt with until the Palestinians turn into Finns . . . The significance [of the agreement with the US] is the freezing of the political process.
   
   And when you freeze that process, you prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state and you prevent a discussion about the refugees, the borders and Jerusalem.
   
   Effectively, this whole package that is called the Palestinian state, with all that it entails, has been removed from our agenda indefinitely. And all this with [President Bush’s] authority and permission . . . and the ratification of both houses of Congress.

A Jewish state would not have come into being without the uprooting of 700,000 Palestinians. Therefore it was necessary to uproot them. There was no choice but to expel that population.

It was necessary to cleanse the hinterland and cleanse the border areas and cleanse the main roads. It was necessary to cleanse the villages from which our convoys and our settlements were fired on.

In the eyes of al-Qaida, the members of Hamas are perceived as heretics due to
their stated desire to participate, even indirectly, in processes of any
understandings or agreements with Israel.

[The Hamas political bureau chief, Khaled] Mashal’s declaration diametrically contradicts al-Qaida’s approach, and provides Israel with an opportunity, perhaps a historic one, to leverage it for the better.

President Barack Obama must turn the page on US's relationship with Israel.

The US's "Special Relationship" with Israel is destroying the image of the United States internationally and it endangers the security and safety of ALL American citizens around the world.

President Barack Obama should not be another line of hypocritical Presidents of the past, when it comes to Israel's treatment of Palestinians.

President Obama, without any fear of or favour to, the Israeli and Jewish Lobby in the US, should, in no uncertain terms, make Israel face the international community on charges of crimes against humanity and for war crimes against the Palestinians.

Otherwise, his campaign call for CHANGE and HOPE for Americans and for the rest of the world, is just another nonsensical crap from a Presidential candidate.

The world noted clearly the irony that President Obama appointed an American who is also an Israeli citizen to be his Chief of Staff (read here: Rahm Emanuel), who happened to be the son of a Zionist terrorist.
(Rahm's father, Benjamin, was a member of the Irgun, the Zionist terrorist organization that coined a new word as they blew up hotels, train stations, and other buildings in Palestine in the 1930s and 40s. Read here for more)
- Malaysian Unplug

It would have helped if Obama had the courage to talk about what everyone in the Middle East was talking about. No, it wasn't the US withdrawal from Iraq. They knew about that.

They expected the beginning of the end of Guantanamo and the probable appointment of George Mitchell as a Middle East envoy was the least that was expected. Of course, Obama did refer to "slaughtered innocents", but these were not quite the "slaughtered innocents" the Arabs had in mind.

There was the phone call yesterday to Mahmoud Abbas.

Maybe Obama thinks he's the leader of the Palestinians, but as every Arab knows, except perhaps Mr Abbas, he is the leader of a ghost government, a near-corpse only kept alive with the blood transfusion of international support and the "full partnership" Obama has apparently offered him, whatever "full" means.

And it was no surprise to anyone that Obama also made the obligatory call to the Israelis.

But for the people of the Middle East, the absence of the word "Gaza" – indeed, the word "Israel" as well – was the dark shadow over Obama's inaugural address.

Didn't he care? Was he frightened?

Did Obama's young speech-writer not realise that talking about black rights – why a black man's father might not have been served in a restaurant 60 years ago – would concentrate Arab minds on the fate of a people who gained the vote only three years ago but were then punished because they voted for the wrong people?

It wasn't a question of the elephant in the china shop. It was the sheer amount of corpses heaped up on the floor of the china shop.

Sure, it's easy to be cynical. Arab rhetoric has something in common with Obama's clichés: "hard work and honesty, courage and fair play ... loyalty and patriotism".

But however much distance the new President put between himself and the vicious regime he was replacing, 9/11 still hung like a cloud over New York. We had to remember "the firefighter's courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke".

Indeed, for Arabs, the "our nation is at war against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred" was pure Bush; the one reference to "terror", the old Bush and Israeli fear word, was a worrying sign that the new White House still hasn't got the message.

Hence we had Obama, apparently talking about Islamist groups such as the Taliban who were "slaughtering innocents" but who "cannot outlast us". As for those in the speech who are corrupt and who "silence dissent", presumably intended to be the Iranian government, most Arabs would associate this habit with President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt (who also, of course, received a phone call from Obama yesterday), King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and a host of other autocrats and head-choppers who are supposed to be America's friends in the Middle East.

Hanan Ashrawi got it right.

The changes in the Middle East – justice for the Palestinians, security for the Palestinians as well as for the Israelis, an end to the illegal building of settlements for Jews and Jews only on Arab land, an end to all violence, not just the Arab variety – had to be "immediate" she said, at once.

But if the gentle George Mitchell's appointment was meant to answer this demand, the inaugural speech, a real "B-minus" in the Middle East, did not.

The friendly message to Muslims, "a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect", simply did not address the pictures of the Gaza bloodbath at which the world has been staring in outrage.

Yes, the Arabs and many other Muslim nations, and, of course, most of the world, can rejoice that the awful Bush has gone. So, too, Guantanamo. But will Bush's torturers and Rumsfeld's torturers be punished? Or quietly promoted to a job where they don't have to use water and cloths, and listen to men screaming?

Sure, give the man a chance. Maybe George Mitchell will talk to Hamas – he's just the man to try – but what will the old failures such as Denis Ross have to say, and Rahm Emanuel and, indeed, Robert Gates and Hillary Clinton?

More a sermon than an Obama inaugural, even the Palestinians in Damascus spotted the absence of those two words: Palestine and Israel.

So hot to touch they were, and on a freezing Washington day, Obama wasn't even wearing gloves.

"...Here's reader Jack Hyde tipping me off about a possible (real) reason behind Israel's bloodletting in Gaza.

He encloses a paper by University of Ottawa economist Michel Chossudovsky who says that "the military intervention of the Gaza Strip by Israeli Forces bears a direct relation to the control and ownership of strategic offshore gas reserves".

It's not exactly The Plot. But it's something that Obama and his lads and lasses may need to study in the next few days.

For according to Chossudovsky, British Gas and its partner, the Athens-based Consolidated Contractors International Company – owned, apparently, by two Lebanese families – were granted 25-year oil and exploration rights off the Gaza coast by Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority in 1999. About 60 per cent of reserves along the Gaza-Israel coastline belong to "Palestine" (wherever that is these days).

But since the Hamas election victory in 2006 and its coup in Gaza in 2007, the Hamas government has been by-passed, even though poor old "President" Mahmoud Abbas, marooned in the West Bank, can only glimpse the Mediterranean from a hill near Jenin.

Many negotiations later – and after Israeli "defence" officials claimed that the Palestinians could be paid only in goods and chattels for their gas rather than cash which might go to the dreaded Hamas – there was a proposed agreement under which Palestinian gas from Gaza wells would be channelled via undersea pipelines to the Israeli port of Ashkelon, thus transferring the control of gas sales to Israel.

British Gas withdrew from these talks in December 2007.

But in June of 2008 – when, according to the Israeli daily Haaretz, Israel began its invasion plans for Gaza – Israel suddenly asked British Gas to resume talks. And, so says Chossudovsky, negotiations began again for the purchase of natural gas from the Gaza offshore fields.

Israeli tanks have now driven out of the Gaza Strip, but Israeli naval vessels still control the coast and there's an obvious question: if the Israelis can continue to violate international law by seizing Palestinian land in the West Bank, why cannot they seize the sovereignty of Palestinian gas fields off Gaza?

If Israel can annex Jerusalem, why not annex Gaza's maritime areas?