مجالس آل محمد (ع)

مرسل: **السبت يوليو 02, 2005 9:17 am**

Before writing, i wish that the management can set the aligment to be left in this Majlis for better viewing
The right to respond: Mr. Al-Olfi really has a problem

By Staff Editor
Jun 30, 2005 - Vol. VIII Issue 26
EDITOR'S NOTE:
This is to reassure that all articles on this Opinion page reflect the opinion of the author and should not be taken as an expression of the newspaper's views. The Yemen Observer welcomes letters and articles and ensures the right to respond and/or comment within the framework of the professional application of press freedom. The Yemen Observer as solidly founded can never be a platform for wanton and baseless arguments. It will remain as ever the world's main source for a comprehensive and professional press coverage of Yemen. We are proud of the trust and confidence readers in Yemen and the world put in our newspaper, and look forward to intensifying efforts to remain at the top of Yemeni private media institutions.
Therefore, to put words into action, below is a response to an opinion article by Yehya Al-Olfi published last week on this page. The article was entitled: “Is it true that Jane Novak is from Aal-Albait?”

Dear colleagues at Yemen Observer:

I still strongly believe that the Yemen Observer is and will always be far above letting misguided intellectuals try to turn the newspaper into a platform for hate-mongers who have failed to achieve success by any other means. Let me just say that Mr. Olfi was this way before the Houthi problem, and we have many articles in which he always tried to sneak in his hate-mongering rhetoric against the Hashemites, even if he was talking about the Brooklyn Bridge.

I am not going to argue against all of Olfi’s arguments, except that I would like to bring a couple of points to his, yours, and your good readers’ attention:

1) Mr. Al-Olfi was going to be asked to leave the Yemen Times on two occasions at least (before the Houthi problem), but the undersigned interceded on his behalf.

2) The nonsensical and unheard of accusation that Hashemites “do not allow their daughters to intermarry” is a silly and contrived notion only believed by Al-Olfi himself and no one else. I wiould remind Al-Olfi that the late literary genius Abdullah Baraddoni once wrote: “I am really flabbergasted why some Yemenis express such a hatred for the Hashemites, since the overwhelming majority of them are related by marriage and clan relationship to Hashemites.” My daughter is married into a non-Hashemite family. I myself am married to a wonderful woman from a non-Hashemite family. Just recently we married a lady from our family into a non-Hashemite family without second thoughts.

I leave the readers to judge Mr. Olfi’s other nonsensical and hate-filled diatribes just based on a living fact I have pointed out above.

3) As for Ms. Novak, I think she can answer for herself, but really I think it would be fruitless for the Yemen Observer to allow itself to stoop so low and perpetuate arguments that have died a death many times over.

It would be more useful if Mr. Olfi got his act together and started writing about things that help better inform people about Yemen and not to try to bombard them with false innuendos about a sizable community in Yemen whose blood is so intermixed with the indigenous population of Yemen that Yemenis have always been viewed as the uncles of Hashemites, including the Prophet Mohammed himself (Peace of Allah be Upon Him).

For your information, the problem of Mr. Olfi was that his column in the Yemen Times did not receive feedback from readers, which was the principle gauge we evaluate Yemen Times writers with. This was a primary reason why the management of the Yemen Times had wanted to relieve him of his position for some time - he did not attract readers. He probably thought that by riding the hate-mongering wagon he was going to go places, because it seemed fitting with the trend of “anti-Houthism.” I hope to God that the Yemen Observer will still maintain its respectability as a forum for pure unadulterated journalism rather than a forum for biases, prejudices, and stereotypes, of the likes propagated by Mr. Al-Olfi.
I thank you for this opportunity to rebut some of Mr. Olfi’s nonsense, and I wish our colleagues at the Yemen Observer continued success and prosperity.

Hassan Al-Haifi

Copyright (c) 2004 - 2005
Yemen Observer Newspaper

مرسل: **الاثنين يوليو 04, 2005 1:08 pm**

Here is what Yehya Al-Olfi wrote before
Is it true that Jane Novak is from Aal-Albait?
By Yehya Al-Olfi
Jun 25, 2005 - Vol. VIII Issue 25
I don’t intend to respond to the disgraceful and selective reply of Jane Novak or the Houthist anger voiced by the Yemen Times or Al-Haifi, as it has become nothing more than a propaganda machine.

On numerous occasions, Al-Haifi, being a Houthist himself, has made false accusations against the government, sometimes under his own name, other times under the protection of aliases that appear recurrently in the pages of the Yemen Times.

I am unfortunately denied the right to respond to the Yemen Times, which has fallen prey to Houthists and secessionists. Hence, I have sent my reply to this newspaper in hopes that it is published within the context of freedom of opinion and my right to respond to the Yemen Times.But before I begin, I would like to mention something I find ironic.

The Houthists call their party “Al-Haq” meaning “the right” in Arabic, “the right” meaning the right to a fifth of the wealth because they are from the Aal-Albeit (the descendants of the prophet Mohammed). And yet, when they address foreigners, they refer to the same party as “the party of the truth.” Do you see how clever and wicked they are?

I am quite amused by the notion that Ms. Novak actually read what I wrote, because if she had read it, her reply would have seemed less wholly dependent on picking and choosing her arguments as she did, choosing instead to jump to conclusions and issue careless accusations.
This leads me to two conclusions: first, the articles which are supposedly written by Ms. Novak are actually the mysterious Al-Wazir of Tabaristan and the secessionists; or second, she learned of the accusations without bothering to read the original piece.

What is important here is that the writing clearly shows that no same American is behind it, unless of course, that American is being manipulated. Her reply did not deal with the issue in an orderly or logical manner, nor did it address the details.

This is easily discernible by turning to my article in the Yemen Times, edition 846, in which I, to the best of my knowledge, articulated a clear and honest account of the Houthist agenda.

The Houthist lobby in the Yemen Times must be quite strong these days, indicated by the fact that her response is published twice, and two more articles were published against me without giving me the right to respond. All this shows is that the Yemen Times has become a Houthist propaganda tool rather than a tool for democracy as I had always hoped it was and would be. After this incident, I am no longer allowed to contribute to the Yemen Times.

Good Riddance! To hell with private repressive journalism! What, I ask, is more ridiculous than the weak translation of the same reply on the pages of the backwards, racist party’s mouthpiece, “Al-Shoura.” Additionally, the Yemen Times has chosen to print only reader responses that support its stance, with others simply never appearing because they do not agree with the paper’s line.

If Ms. Novak believes that she is 100% correct, and that I am completely wrong, I would like to kindly ask her several questions before she publishes another errant response: If America had a group of armed insurgents claiming godly rights to power and advantage, that any opponent to those exclusive rights and power were infidels and should be exterminated, what would the reaction of the American people be? And that of the Bush administration or Congress? How, Ms. Novak can you answer this question honestly and not be reasonable with yourself? How can you not say these people are not racists in the context of privilege? It is real and materially substantiated that the Houthists consider other Yemenis lower in status than themselves with regard to religious, political, social, and economic rights.

Did you know that at this moment, today, in the twenty first century, the Houthists do not permit their daughters to marry outside their clan and prefer to kill them rather than allow them to marry normal Yemeni citizens? They have killed their own daughters.

So, Ms. Novak, how dare you give lip service to concepts such as freedom of thought, religious pluralism, and multi-party political affiliations in defense of Houthists whose ideologies violate even the most basic human rights. They are a catastrophe in Yemen and a catastrophe for the Yemeni people.

I say this now, and I invite you personally, as well as human rights associations in the U.S. to examine them closer. As for me, I am for equality, the upholding of the reunification of Yemen, as well as democracy, no matter if the custodians are the current leaders or the Houthists, though they are far from representing these concepts.

In one unpublished response to the Yemen Times, one reader asks Ms. Novak why she only speaks about the consequences of war and ignores the causes of war. If so, why doesn’t she speak of the consequences of the American invasion of Iraq and the scandals that followed? Are the Houthist plans best for Yemen? Is violence the best way to bring about change in a country? If she were able to advise the Yemeni president, how would she view the Houthist army in Saada? If there were such an insurgency in the U.S. which intended to seize power, how would George W. Bush react?

I have come to the conclusion that the Yemen Times has become a dubious paper and that neither the Houthists nor Jane Novak are not as correct or righteous as they claim to be.

Copyright (c) 2004 - 2005
Yemen Observer Newspaper

مرسل: **الاثنين يوليو 04, 2005 2:39 pm**

Dear Nader concerning your request I am afraid the program does not allow to do that , the only thing we can do now is to allow all users from preferences to write either in Left Alignment in all the topics or in Right Alignment also in all topics Which is not practical.
So plz be patient a little more while until we launch the new program.
Regards

مرسل: **الثلاثاء يوليو 05, 2005 1:24 am**

Dear All,
here is the response of Jane Novak, it is astonishing how determined she is;
all the best.

BOOOORING I thought after they realized they couldn’t bribe me, there might be a new strategy. But no, just another article trashing Jane in Yemen.

lets review: first there was Jane Novak a docile pupil of a monkey monk,then came my response, then an editorial apology, then an oped, then an actual article by me about Yemen (#15)

now we get: Is it true Jane Novak is from Aal-Albait?

no I’m from Brooklyn.

Its getting a little stale. But since I need something for the Cotillion on Tuesday, I’ll do a very minor fisking:

If America had a group of armed insurgents claiming godly rights to power and advantage, that any opponent to those exclusive rights and power were infidels and should be exterminated, what would the reaction of the American people be?Well actually America does have that. Its called al-Qaeda. The reaction of the moonbats on the left seems to be to want to secure their rights and protect their library privilges. The conservatives advocate a more pro-active and rigorous approach.

And that of the Bush administration or Congress?

Well, Im reasonably certain that if there were a few al-Qaeda in Cleveland, President Bush and Congress would NOT decide to surround the city with military, exclude the journalists, indescrimately bomb the people, cut off food to the citizens, arrest doctors who provide medical treatment, exclude humanitarian organizations, arrest 12 year olds, randomly arrest ten thousand citizens without cause, hold them without trial for a year, drag burnt bodies around Cleveland behind police cars, run over the injured Americans with US tanks, rape women, spray chlorine gas, attack civilians with helicoper gunships, confiscate the computers from the New York Times and arrest Judith Miller when she tried to write about it, arrest members of Amnesty International who try to publicize it, bomb the Democrats headquarters and kidnap Hillary, and then use PBS to publicly denounce everyone in Cleveland as racists who deserve to die. This is whats happening in Yemen to the Shiites under the direction of Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh. And no, I dont think that’s what Bush and the Congress would do here in the US.

What a moron this guy is, including this:

What, I ask, is more ridiculous than the weak translation of the same reply on the pages of the backwards, racist party’s mouthpiece, “Al-Shoura.”
Obviously someone forgot to tell Olify that al-Khaiwani is famous here in the US. If there was a survey of American conservatives asking for the name of a middle eastern editor, the only one widely known is al-Khaiwani, not just from when the Coalition of the Willing had a half million daily viewers tracking his appeal, but also from the six articles I wrote about him before that. Also the fact that he publishes my pro-democracy articles in al-Shoura in Arabic in Yemen doesn’t hurt his fan base either. So again, the wrong move for the US.

Otherwise Im back to work. I have no more time for Yahya the yo-yo. Weeell, maybe first I’ll cross post this at the other six websites where I have posting privileges. heh Thanks guys. Update: Beth is having open trackbacks. Love those inline trackys.

(Update for anyone coming late to the party. Here’s a little something from the Tides foundation on the al-Haq party mentioned in the article: In 2002, when then the idea was circulated inYemen for “strikes against US interests” in retaliation for US support of Israel, the parties reacted: the al-Haq party opposed this slogan and the concept. Al-Haq and the PFU instead called for a boycott of American products. Islah, in a statement issued by Zindani, on the other hand, urged the prompt opening of training camps to train Yemenis to go fight in Palestine.)