Persiflage & Paroxysm

The meal on the first night of Passover, the Seder, was and remains a highly structured and rigidly ritualized meal that marks the Israelites passing out of slavery under the Egyptians and into freedom. Every Jewish household, especially observant ones, followed the rituals strictly, but in the Strauss household, Seder was also an opportunity to build bridges with the other none Jewish urban communities in Haifa, of which this German Jewish family of four have become a part. In fact, the Passover meal at Herr Strauss’s had become a much-anticipated social occasion for many of his Jewish and none Jewish students, Michel included.    As a music teacher of some renown, Herr Strauss’s home was a sort of cultural epicenter for the urban elite and the aspiring secular, liberal socialites of the city. As in many Arab cities today, learning a musical instrument was and remains a sign of social advancement, learning to play the piano was especially favored for young girls. As with each...

Riad Salameh, Banque du Liban (BDL), six Lebanese commercial banks and three international accounting and audit firms with Lebanese affiliates have been named as defendants in a class action case filed earlier this month in the United States District Court of New Jersey by a group of US citizen plaintiffs who’s money is stuck in Lebanese banks. The case is the first to allege violation of the RICO Act of 1970 (the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) by claiming a conspiracy existed between the named banks (commercial bank conspirators) and BDL, a Lebanese government institution, in order to attract large sums of money from US citizens of Arab and Lebanese extraction before 2019 for the sole purpose of funding the Lebanese state and the purchase of food and medicines and other necessities after dollar remittances into the country began to dwindle in 2015.     The court document goes into detail stating that bank staff using email and other electronic means of co...

Probably the first time since the start of western colonial imperialist expansion in the 17 th century, formerly colonized and subjugated so-called third world countries are today breathing a little easier and many a sigh of relief can be heard if only in hushed tones. The formerly savaged, brutalized, invaded and robbed country of Iran now has a series of home-made weapons that pose a serious problem to the modern militaries of the west.   The proud and ancient Persia with a history stretching back thousands of years has been at the receiving end of unjustified western attacks since Alexander of Macedonia ploughed through the civilized eastern world with reckless and drunken abandon. In modern times, Iran was invaded and occupied in 1941 by the British and Soviets, its natural resources brazenly and illegally appropriated, its people condemned to poverty and backwardness, a democratically elected prime minister toppled in a CIA engineered coup in 1953, and w...

A water-poor land stuck between the fertile Levant and the oil-rich Gulf kingdoms but possessing neither economic nor natural wealth of any significance, a mesmerizing desert landscape unrivaled in the world some say and a few historic and holy sites, all this makes The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan a great place for tourists to visit, but a burden to run. My heartfelt sympathies to its ruling dynasty, I know first-hand what it’s like to run a small family business, my own father struggled with one for years as did we all along with him. Jordan not only needs water aid, it needs economic aid and lots of it, and the US recognized this early on and has since the 70s at least supported first King Hussein and later his son and heir King Abdullah II with political and economic aid.   Jordan, a stunning desertscape and a tourist hotspot   There is an important reason for this US strategic interest in Jordan, it’s simply because the Kingdom has the longest land border with Israel and ...