Palestinian women smoking in peace in their open-air prison: Gaza…
Researchers from Harvard (USA), Waterloo & Toronto (Canada) warn against the global situation in the Great Middle East, highlighting the “dangerous levels of particulate matter in smoking public venues in Lebanon, Pakistan, Syrian Arab Republic and Tunisia”.
Further to the visit of the “official” delegation to Gaza coffee houses, they concluded that Palestinians should immediately stop smoking, particularly the Middle East Peace Pipe: “A comprehensive smoke-free policy is needed in Gaza city to help reduce exposure to SHS, a major cause of preventable disease and premature death” [1].
Logistical support for such an outstanding study was provided by ASH and George Saade [2]. The latter is affiliated with the Lebanese University and a distinguished member of the Globalink secret society funded by the great names of the pharmaceutical industry. Together with his colleagues from the US-American University of Beirut (Ghazi Zaatari in particular, known for his supervision of a famous WHO report) and the North-American ones, he has already succeeded in producing the science supposed to support the Lebanese Smoking Ban and Syrian Smoking Ban.
The striking similarity with an international police operation, involving once again the US-American University of Beirut (actual US “”public health”” cop in charge of what is described as the “Middle East and North Africa” region) would be no fortuitous irrelevant assumption…
Hyping the health risks of smoking thanks to biased studies which measured only one thing: the efficiency of the ventilation system in a territory under dire embargo…
However, what the new “study” has actually measured is only the effect of poor ventilation in those peaceful places and nothing else (not to mention the embargo context…), just as previous ones have but measured the poor hygiene and certainly not the effect of water filtered tobacco smoke. This has been clarified in a 50 page comprehensive highly technical critical review on this issue, published in 2009 [3]. What is methodologically worse and unethical however, is that, on purpose, they do not distinguish between two completely different types of smoke: that of cigarettes and that of the Middle East Peace Pipe, which are obviously intermixed inside the coffee houses.
The new geopolitical aspect of the issue here is that Gaza, being ruled by a religious party, one can easily understand the US intentions: pushing local political leaders to edict bans on religious grounds, as this happened in Malaysia through a totally unscientific so-called “fatwa” made in the USA. To Malaysian and Palestinians, let us remind here that the Middle East Peace Pipe is certainly not “haram”, i.e. “illicit” (see here the tricks prohibitionist activists and researchers resort to, to deceive religious leaders in this field.
References:
[1] Abuelaish I, Seidenberg AB, Kennedy RD, Rees VW. Second-hand smoke and indoor air quality in public places in Gaza City. East Mediterr Health J. 2013 May;19(5):447-51.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24617123
[2] ASH (Action on Smoking and Health). ““Shisha 200 times worse than a cigarette” say Middle East experts””. 27 March 2007 (prepared by Martin Dockrell)(accessed 13 June, 2008) [based, among others, on an interview with Wasim Maziak and Alan Shihadeh, respectively heads of the US-“Syrian Centre for Tobacco Studies” and US-American University of Beirut centre] Sub-heading: “Three leading experts from across the Middle East have warned that excluding “shisha bars” when England goes smokefree on July 1 could worsen the grave inequalities in health that already affect ethnic minorities”. (note: none of the experts worked or live in the UK).
[3] Chaouachi K. Hookah (Shisha, Narghile) Smoking and Environmental Tobacco Smoke (ETS). A Critical Review of the Relevant Literature and the Public Health Consequences. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2009; 6(2):798-843.
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pubmed&pubmedid=19440416
Read also:
Shisha smokers there mocking unscientific imported “public health” warnings, say: “We will more likely die in an Israeli raid!…”
Sudeshan Sarkar: “From pipe dreams to peril”. 16 Nov 2013.
In this article, a US doctor “reveals” how the Middle East Peace Pipe is not from the Middle East…:
“Of all the myths that have sprung up about the shisha, probably the most erroneous is that it is a long-standing tradition in the region.
“That’s not true,” says Dr Sherman. “Shisha smoking is not part of the Middle East culture. People who grow these products have been propagating the myth and harming their consumers at the same time””…
See also parallel media coverage from the same University of Toronto (behind the “Palestinian” “study”), led by a new antismoking activist on the hookah scene:
Chethan Sathya: “Hookah smoking’s dangers lead to bans. Waterpipe fumes may be more toxic than cigarettes, [ALWAYS THE SAME ANTI ««WATERPIPE»» ANTISMOKING UNETHICAL] experts find”. CBC News, Dec 23, 2013
http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/hookah-smoking-s-dangers-lead-to-bans-1.2471601
Finally, for those who may feel that all these bans are suspect –because of their exaggeration, the poor science supporting them, their unethical tricks and, above all, their timing (think of the war on Syria, for instance)-, here is a MUST read for them:
Targetting Syria – NATO countries’ abuse of NGOs. Sep 13, 2013
http://tortillaconsal.com/albared/node/2370
Note by Editors: ‘”Another example here of how US government and NGO sector funding in countries targeted NATO is used to create ideological bridgeheads, co-opt local cultural and scientific communities and offer spurious authoritative comment for NATO’s global media psychological warfare. All the ALBA countries in Latin America and the Caribbean have long experience of this kind of subversive intromission. Kamal Chaouachi’s text confirms the global nature of this NATO government modus operandi.”
The Middle East Peace Pipe (Scientific & Ethical Issues) 
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