Thru Other Eyes

Do Coincidences Exist in the Middle East?

What do you think? Do coincidences exist or is the timing of certain events just too fortuitous to be random coincidences, especially when one is talking about events in the Middle East? In Dutch, the word for coincidence is 'toeval.' The word can be also read as 'val toe' which loosely translated means falling in(to) place.

Are certain events concerning Iran mere coincidences or are certain things just falling into place? Consider the following three things that all happened to appear in yesterday's news.

American green light for Israeli attack on Iran?
On Sunday, Vice President Joe Biden was asked by George Stephanopoulos, host of ABC's "This Week," about Iran and Israel. He was specifically asked what he thought about Prime Minister Netanyahu's statements that if Obama's engagement with Iran bears no fruit by the end of the year that Israel will take matters into its own hands. A follow-up question addressed the USA's position if Israel were to decide to attack Iran. Biden's answers clearly seemed to be a 'wink-wink' if not an out and out green light for an independent Israeli course of action, even if that included military action against Iran.

Here's the exchange:

Iran Twitter Report - June 30 - July 3

   You have undoubtedly noticed that Iran has pretty much disappeared from the mainstream media. This gives people the incorrect idea that it's all over. Although the government has been very successful in quelling large public gatherings through violence, intimidation and mass arrests it is clear that this thing is anything but over. It has perhaps gone into a new and slow-moving phase where most of the action is behind the scenes. But as many expert commentators have said over the past weeks, it is going to be impossible to get this genie back into its bottle.

So what has happened the last few days? We finally have some news about Persiankiwi, the nighttime chanting continues and according to many is growing still in intensity and there are plans forming for a national strike in the coming week. But the real story at the moment is the continued and by many measures growing split among the country's top clerics and political elite. So that's where we will begin.

Iran Twitter Report - Sunday June 28 & Monday June 29

  (written Monday afternoon, 6.30 PM Tehran time)

Today's round-up includes the gathering at and near the Ghoba Mosque, the reinvigoration of the opposition movement, nighttime rooftop chanting, voter fraud, whereabouts Persiankiwi still unknown, the return of one missing Iranian Twitter with his reports of friend's experience while under arrest and some video links.

Reinvigoration

Yesterday was a different day then the several days before. As you will have certainly heard from the mainstream media, there were once again street demonstrations at and near the Ghoba Mosque. Protesters used the annual memorial celebrations for Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti who along with dozens of others were killed in an anti-government bombing in 1981 as cover for renewed street presence.

Iran Twitter Report - Saturday June 27

  (Written Sunday afternoon)

Even though the information coming out of Iran via Twitter remained sparse on Saturday there were several things of interest. The mainstream media has largely returned to reporting based on what is available from government sources which in and of itself is a large and unfortunate victory for the government's propaganda machine.

The victory is so big that many people are beginning to assume that the protest movement has been quelled and as one friend said to me on Saturday, "But that thing's over, isn't it?" It is clear that the government's violent campaign against its citizens and the efforts to restrict the flow of information and hunt down and arrest key sources of information has had a significant effect. We have entered a phase best characterized by that philosophical question, "If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make any noise?"

So what was happening on Saturday? We will cover a demonstration by victims' mothers, look at what's happening behind the scenes, we have a few words about the battle for cyberspace and of course an update on Persiankiwi.

Iran Twitter Report - Friday June 26

Today the non-government information flowing out of Iran was even slower than yesterday with little information of substance. That plus the sad death of Michael Jackson has pushed the situation in Iran way down the ladder in the mainstream media. However there are some noteworthy bits. Here is a round-up of what I could glean from Twitter and other web sources.

Green Balloons

Given the extreme violence against protesters in the last couple of days, there was a call on protesters to release green balloons today. It is impossible to know how many people did so as the information flow has slowed from a trickle to a drip-drip. Between the called-for time of 1 PM until 1 AM (both Iran time) I could find only 250 tweets (a posting on Twitter is called a tweet) talking about green balloons and almost all of those were from people outside of Iran. Many contained links to pictures and videos that did make their way out today but after randomly clicking on dozens of the links I could only find four different videos (1, 2, 3, 4) and a handful of pictures.

Iran Twitter Report - Thursday June 25

Something out of the ordinary is going on in Iran today as the information coming out via Twitter and other sources has slowed to a trickle with very little substantive information. At first I thought that maybe I was missing something but even CNN, with their fully decked out Iran desk, confirmed my suspicions:

"The Internet communications that CNN monitors to determine what is happening in Iran, where the government has imposed severe restrictions on international journalists, appeared to have slowed Thursday. It was not clear whether that was because there was less activity or because the government was blocking access."

The Iranian Twitter, Persiankiwi,

Iran Twitter Report - Wednesday June 24

It is now midnight in Tehran and here is the Twitter report for the last 24 hours from the individual I follow most closely. It makes for heavy reading with its eye-witness report of deadly and brutal attacks on people today at Baharestan Square. Also, this Twitter and his group of trusted contacts are apparently now on the run as the authorities seem to be closing in on them. He writes: "we must go - dont know when we can get internet - they take 1 of us, they will torture and get names - now we must move fast." That and two other messages were posted four hours ago and since then nothing more. With only 24 messages today versus his 100 messages yesterday, it is clear that things are getting ever more difficult and dangerous as the regime tightens both the physical and IT noose.

Iran Twitter Report - Tuesday June 23

 I have been closely following the events in Iran for the last week and a half. Unless you have been living in a cave you will know that the mainstream media is unable to report what's going on due to severe government restrictions. All the real news that is filtering out is coming from mostly young Iranians who are risking at best their freedom and at worst their lives to break through the government's information embargo and counteract the propaganda that official government news sources are spreading. They are passing information about events and developments on the ground, planned demonstrations and requests for assistance primarily through Twitter and Facebook. And they are secretly filming and photographing what's happening and uploading this material to Youtube and other websites.

The Twitter reports of those close to the action are unlike anything that we are used to from mainstream media. They are often eye-witness accounts or accounts from people they call trusted sources. Their entries often come in real or near real time and are packed with all the emotions that the person is feeling as they write. It is high human drama, often raw and more often than not since a few days ago full of fear and anxiety.

If you want to know what's really going on from a human perspective then forget the mainstream media and go right to the source. After all, that's what the mainstream media is doing at the moment.

Here is what one of the more authoritative Twitters reported yesterday, June 23, 2009. I am reprinting this person's Twitter activity for those who are not following Twitter or who do not follow this one particular source. Although it is not difficult to trace who this is from, since Twitter is open to all, I am not printing his or her's Twitter name. The time period covered is from 2.30 AM on June 24 back to about 4 AM on June 23: