Lieberman – the worst thing that could happen to the Middle East
March 21st, 2009 § Leave a Comment
Robert Fisk on the rise of Avigdor Lieberman and its implications for the plight of the Palestinians. Fisk draws parallels between Lieberman’s fascist campaign slogans and the discourse of viscious nationalists like Mladic, Karadzic and Milosevic.
Only days after they were groaning with fury at the Israeli lobby’s success in hounding the outspoken Charles Freeman away from his proposed intelligence job for President Obama, the Arabs now have to contend with an Israeli Foreign Minister whose – let us speak frankly – racist comments about Palestinian loyalty tests have brought into the new Netanyahu cabinet one of the most unpleasant politicians in the Middle East.
The New York Times does ‘Debate’
March 21st, 2009 § 2 Comments
When Chomsky and Herman wrote Manufacturing Consent they posited ownership as one of the key filters that determines the output of the press. However, theirs was a strictly materialist interpretation of institutional relations. They did not, for example, say whether the ethnic component of ownership influences or constrains reporting in any way. If the New York Times and Washington Post propagandize so unabashedly for Israel (and, more importantly, against Palestinians), might their Jewish ownership (and largely Jewish editorial boards) partly explain this?
We do know that when the rabid anti-Arab/Muslim racist Martin Peretz bought The New Republic in the early ’70s, he purged everyone from the magazine who was deemed insufficiently committed to the Zionist cause. Phil Weiss from his own experience concludes that even non-Zionist Jewish publishers tend to get uncomfortable and muzzle reporters when it comes to Israel. And who can forget the smearing of Norman Finkelstein by the ‘progressives’ in The Progressive magazine.
So today, I notice that the New York Times has published what it bravely refers to as a ‘debate’ around the testimonies of Israeli soldiers confirming the Palestinian claims of atrocities carried out by the IOF. But since it is the New York Times, a debate, as always, means two supporters of Israeli actions competing with two even stronger supporters of Israeli actions. You need not bother with the rest, just the first two lines of each contribution should give you a sufficient idea of what this is all about.
Working on a Dream
March 21st, 2009 § Leave a Comment
Bruce Springsteen performs the title song from his new record on The Daily Show
Canada can’t muzzle me
March 21st, 2009 § 1 Comment
‘To ban me from the country for my views on Afghanistan is absurd, hypocritical, and in vain’, writes George Galloway who has been banned from entering Canada by the pathetic clowns who run that country.
The Canadian immigration minister Jason Kenney gazetted in the Sun yesterday morning that I was to be excluded from his country because of my views on Afghanistan. That’s the way the rightwing, last-ditch dead-enders of Bushism in Ottawa conduct their business.
Kenney is quite a card. A quick trawl establishes he’s a gay-baiter, gung-ho armchair warrior, with an odd habit of exceeding his immigration brief. Three years ago he attacked the pro-western Lebanese prime minister, Fuad Siniora, for being ungrateful to Canada for its support of Israeli bombardment of his country. Most curiously of all, in 2006 he addressed a rally of the so-called People’s Mujahideen of Iran, a Waco-style cult, banned in the European Union as a terrorist organisation. On one level being banned by such a man is like being told to sit up straight by the hunchback of Notre Dame or being lectured on due diligence by Conrad Black. On another, for a Scotsman to be excluded from Canada is like being turned away from the family home.
To free Iraq, resistance must bridge the sectarian divide
March 20th, 2009 § Leave a Comment
‘As anti-occupation leaders recognise, the US could still exploit their divisions in an effort to offset its strategic defeat’, writes Seumas Milne.
In a last-ditch attempt to rescue some wafer of credibility from the west’s most catastrophic war of modern times, the story is taking hold in Britain and the US that after six years of horror Iraq is finally coming good. So quickly has this spin become accepted truth that politicians and pundits now regularly insist that if only General Petraeus is allowed to work his surge magic on Afghanistan, all could be well in that benighted land as well. One recent report in the Sunday Telegraph even claimed that the 4,000 British troops still in Basra are regarded as “heroes and liberators” by Iraqis now that their £8bn mission has at last been “accomplished”.
As the seventh year of the US-led occupation of Iraq begins tomorrow, facts on the ground tell a very different tale. Last week more than 60 people were killed in two suicide attacks on Iraqi police and army targets in Baghdad, while on Monday a 12-year-old girl was shot dead by American troops in a checkpoint incident in Nineveh province. It’s true that violence is well down on its gory peak of a couple of years ago and the power supply is edging up – to the level the US promised to achieve five years ago, at about 50% of demand. But a US soldier is killed on average every other day, Iraqi police and soldiers are dying at a much higher rate, and reported Iraqi civilian deaths are running at over 300 a month.
Colbert on Conceptual Art
March 19th, 2009 § 8 Comments
“The Gates” have forced Stephen Colbert to recontextualize his notion of what $21 million can be used for.
Oh Come On, Let’s Blame The Israel Lobby For Iraq
March 19th, 2009 § 3 Comments
My friend, the great Philip Weiss, states the obvious in his review of Juan Cole’s book. With all due respect, I found Cole’s evasions of the lobby question, and his curious insistence on wielding a club while ‘engaging with the Muslims’ world rather insulting. Both on Democracy Now and the Colbert Report his performances were anything but impressive. Frankly, it is very unlikely that I’d bother reading his book if his media performances are in any way a reflection of the book’s contents.
I’m going to order Juan Cole’s book today. I have the typical American understanding of the Muslim world –pretty small–and admire the engagement and seriousness that Cole has brought to this issue again and again. That’s why I’m addicted to his blog.
But let’s talk about the Israel lobby and the Iraq War. Reading MJ’s synopsis, I find Cole’s view unpersuasive. I don’t think the oil companies had any interest in the Iraq War. Saudi Arabia didn’t want it. Just ask Chas Freeman, the former ambassador, who vehemently opposed the war. Realists hated this war. John Mearsheimer was for the Gulf War out of an American interest that included oil, Saudi Arabia was for that war. Both were against the Iraq war.
Using the oil companies as a motivator strikes me as a lazy leftwing parking job. Everyone’s going to believe it on our side because we all hate the oil companies; but the evidence isn’t there.
Ian Paisley launches Northern Ireland Friends of Israel
March 19th, 2009 § 6 Comments
In response to increasing boycott calls, by organisations such as the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, the Zionists have launched a Northern Ireland Friends of Israel lobby group. It would be more aptly titled Northern Ireland Friends of Occupation, Apartheid, Racism, Massacre and Continued Colonisation. From the Jerusalem Post:
The Northern Ireland Friends of Israel marked its launch in Belfast last week with addresses from trade unionists, politicians and community leaders, including veteran unionist Rev. Ian Paisley.
Paisley, “the controversial firebrand preacher turned peacemaker,” in NIFI’s words, spoke of the similarities between the struggles of Israel and of Northern Ireland against terrorism, prayed for peace in Jerusalem and called for peace in the Middle East akin to the past few years of calm Northern Ireland has enjoyed due to power sharing between his Democratic Unionist Party and the Irish Republican Sinn Fein.
UK economic links with Israeli settlements
March 19th, 2009 § 1 Comment
A new comprehensive report by the Dutch research group Profundo – prepared for the Sir Joseph Hotung Programme for Law, Human Rights and Peace Building in the Middle East, SOAS – details the economic ties of a long list of British companies to Israeli settlements and other breaches of international law committed by the Israeli state. An indespensable resource for those engaged in the BDS campaign. Here is the edited summary of the full report:
Since June 1967, Israel has occupied the West Bank (including East Jerusalem), the Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights. These territories are beyond the “Green Line,” which is accepted as the provisional, de facto border of Israel, until the successful conclusion of the Middle East peace process confirms its permanent international frontiers. Israel has established civilian settlements in these occupied territories, which is illegal according to international law. The creation of these settlements is in violation of Israel’s obligations under the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 which was adopted to protect civilians during armed conflict. This was known by Israel in 1967 when the then-Israeli government first considered establishing civilian settlements in the territories it had captured during the 1967 War. Israel’s settlements in the Gaza Strip were dismantled in August 2005. In the West Bank and the Golan Heights, however, settlements are expanding and new ones are being established in breach of international law and, in relation to the West Bank, the Road Map.
