Links for March 24 2010

It gives me great pleasure to play this wonderful song. I've known it for a while, and just found this live version on YouTube. But it took coming across Qifa Nakbi's post today to fully understand its origins:

That’s right, he’s singing about food: yabra (i.e. stuffed graped leaves), harisseh (a semolina dessert), kibbeh bi-siniyyeh (a dish of meat and bulgur), lahm mishweh (grilled meat), etc.

A great tune. So what’s the back-story? I’ve been able to dig up various bits and pieces, but perhaps one of the readers can help out. The Wikipedia page on Gaillard suggests that he was reading from an Arabic menu, while this page claims that it was anArmenian menu, and that the song was actually “banned on at least two Los Angeles radio stations for its suspicious lyric references to drugs and crime…” 

Do listen to the album version on the post, as well as Arabian Boogie.

Now for the links...

• Israel Won't Change Unless the Status Quo Has a Downside | Mother Jones

  Tony Karon: "progress in the Middle East will not come until the US changes Israel's cost-benefit analysis for maintaining the status quo."

• New wave of fiction in Egypt bypasses politics | Fort Mill Times - Fort Mill, SC

  On recent Egyptian novels.

• The Al-Azhar Conflict Asharq Alawsat Newspaper (English)

  Abdel Rahman Rashid, that sharmouta for the most extreme religious regime on the planet, Saudi Arabia, defends al-Tayeb's membership of the NDP as sign of 'moderation'.

• Dictator-lit: Gaddafi's surreal gibberish | Books | guardian.co.uk
  
  
• Review: The New Authoritarianism « The Moor Next Door

  Book review.

• Moammar's magical mystery tour - The Majlis

  Majlis makes good point about those who take junkets to Libya: their three days in hotels does not enable them to pass judgement on anything.

• International Crisis Group - B71 Libye/Tchad : au-delà d'une politique d'infl

  On parts of Libya's Sahel policy - a region where Qadhafi is actually pretty important.

• Reuters AlertNet - First granddaughter of Egypt's Mubarak born

  So it's a girl, not a boy as previously rumoured: Farida Mubarak.

• Dispute with Israel underscores limits of U.S. power, a shifting alliance - washingtonpost.com
  
  
• ‘This past year has arguably been the worst in the history of the occupied Palestinian territory’
  
  
• Israel voices regret at UK expulsion of diplomat

  The gall...

• Britain kicks out Israeli diplomat in passport row - Yahoo! News

  We want more details.

• Op-Ed Columnist - Iran's Exiles - NYTimes.com

  Moving piece by Roger Cohen.

• Asia Times Online ::A spy unsettles US-India ties

  WTF? Guy who planned Mumbai attack was a CIA agent?