4th Letter to Jared Kushner

Dear Jared,

It’s a funny relationship that we have: me writing and you not responding, but I do appreciate that you have a lot on your plate… Moreover, I owe you an apology. Only a few days ago, I wrote that you have disappeared from the radar. We now all know, that it was the radar alright, only that you were busy selling military radars and other such goodies to Saudi Arabia, to the tune of $110 billion, this year alone. By the way, were the 100 million dollars, that the Saudis have pledged to Ivanka’s fund, agreed in the same arms deal, in which you are reported to have pressurised Lockheed to reduce their prices?

Now, in the old days, Jewish mothers wanted their sons to become doctors – you know, the kind of people who heal the sick and the wounded. The gear that you are dealing with, does sure thing not heal any wounds.  

I am sure that your mother is proud of you. Mothers always are. Mothers of successful sons even more so. Deep down, you know that she has no reason to be proud.

Best regards

From your pen pal David,

Trump and his New Muslim Friends

Having crucified Muslims before and throughout his campaign – and even after taking office, (remember “Donald J trump calls for a complete and total shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what the hell is going on”), Trump must have concluded that those Muslims who are willing to spend 110 billion dollars on US arms in one year, cannot be that bad. Forget Saudi Arabia’s being the country which gave us the 9-11 bombers, which produced Osama Bin Laden and which exports extremist Islam, wherever it can. As to the Saudi population, I suppose that human rights are not so much Trump’s thing anyway, so why bother about Saudi’s track record there.

So Sunni Muslims are apparently fine. But Trump needs to hate at least some Muslims and so he nominates Iran as the Muslims to hate. This – Trump expects – will pay dividends on the home front: and persuade the Republicans in Congress that he is an asset and that he should not be removed from office. After all, bringing in 350 billion dollars from arms sales to the Saudis, over the next ten years, will make many Republicans happy. Additionally, by going on the “Iran the Evil” trip, he not only buys support of all those Republicans who objected to Obama’s Iran deal, but he also gets the backing of the lobbies supporting the “settlement and continued occupation” government of Israel.

Smart move. Nonetheless, let’s hope he fails.

May vs. Merkel

Theresa May, the woman now running the UK, gave the role of Britain’s Foreign Secretary to Boris Johnson, one of the leaders of the Brexit campaign, a man with a track record of lying and one of the most irresponsible, rude and loudmouthed men in British politics.

So here is what happens, when Boris Johnson refreshingly said something true: He spoke about the situation in the Middle East and spoke of the countries abusing their own religion to further their political objectives: “the Saudis, Iran, everybody, moving in and puppeteering and playing proxy wars.” Prime Minister Theresa May immediately rebutted him with: “the foreign secretary's views are not the government's position on, for example, Saudi Arabia and its role in the region." Of course not, we want to do business with them and who cares about the rest.

What a difference between no-values Theresa May and Germany’s values-led Angela Merkel.  

Queen Rania and Saudi Arabia

Queen Rania of Jordan has just called on Europe not to turn its back on Syrian refugees. My first thought was that the Jordanian queen should have addressed her plea to the more logical direction of the Gulf states. After all, they are fellow Arabs, fellow Muslims and they are rich.

And then I remembered reading some time ago that the Gulf states (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar and Kuwait) had set up a US$ 5 billion fund that invests in capital projects in Jordan … 

The Queen of Jordan is perhaps not really free to talk frankly to Saudi Arabia. Much easier to tell the Europeans what to do. And yet, we should not forget that Jordan itself has been bearing much if the burden (like Turkey), having had to take in great numbers of Syrian refugees: more than 600 thousand in Jordan and almost two million in Turkey.

So how about it Saudi?