Total Capitulation

by Tariq Ali

The ‘Palestine Papers’ being published this week by al-Jazeera confirm in every detail what many Palestinians have suspected for a long time: their leaders have been collaborating in the most shameful fashion with Israel and the United States. Their grovelling is described in grim detail. The process, though few accepted it at the time, began with the much-trumpeted Oslo Accords, described by Edward Said in the LRB at the time as a ‘Palestinian Versailles’. Even he would have been taken aback by the sheer scale of what the PLO leadership agreed to surrender: virtually everything except their own salaries. Their weaknesses, inadequacies and cravenness are now in the public domain.

Now we know that the capitulation was total, but still the Israeli overlords of the PLO refused to sign a deal and their friends in the press blamed the Palestinians for being too difficult. They wanted Palestine to be crushed before they would agree to underwrite a few moth-eaten protectorates that they would supervise indefinitely. They wanted Hamas destroyed. The PLO agreed. The recent assault on Gaza was carried out with the approval of Abbas and Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, not to mention Washington and its EU. The PLO sold out in a literal sense. They were bought with money and treated like servants. There is TV footage of Ehud Barak and Bill Clinton at Camp David playfully tugging at Arafat’s headgear to stop him leaving. All three are laughing. Many PLO supporters in Palestine must be weeping as they watch al-Jazeera and take in the scale of the betrayal and the utter cynicism of their leaders. Now we know why the Israel/US/EU nexus was so keen to disregard the outcome of the Palestinian elections and try to destroy Hamas militarily.

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Palestinian Authority Goons Attack Al Jazeera Offices in Ramallah

Max Blumenthal asks: “How did the US and Israel-funded emergency PA government of Abbas/Abed Rabbo/Erekat respond to Al Jazeera’s release of the Palestine Papers? They released a goon squad to vandalize Al Jazeera’s Ramallah office and apparently to attack the person filming the video, too.”

http://maxblumenthal.com/2011/01/palestinian-authority-goons-attack-al-jazeera-offices-in-ramallah/

Andrew Bacevich on US Presidential History

Susan Modares of Press TV’s excellent Autograph interviews Andrew J. Bacevich, one of PULSE’s top 10 global thinkers of 2010.

Americans mostly tend to divide their history into presidential terms. Thus, they think there are great differences between the presidents. Many, however, believe there is a national security policy consensus which continues through all presidencies without any change. The same issue is discussed with author and Boston University Prof. Andrew J. Bacevich in this edition of The Autograph.

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Is Pakistan’s ‘Monkey Show’ Coming Apart?

M. Shahid Alam

For too long now, the government of Pakistan – at its highest levels – has looked like a monkey show staged by the United States of America.

The USA picks the mercenaries from Pakistan’s wealthy and corrupt elites who are eager to play the part of the monkey. Once in office, they act upon cues that are called by the US plenipotentiary in Islamabad or elsewhere. The monkey master says, Give us transit rights; the monkey obliges. He says, Join our war against Afghanistan; the monkey obliges again. He says, We will bomb your people, you take the blame; the monkey obliges again. The monkey never disappoints.

All that the monkey master has to do to keep this monkey show going is to toss a few peanuts to the monkeys in the show for every act well-performed.

Of course, in order to try to fool the Pakistanis, the monkey master complains periodically that the monkey is not “doing enough.” The monkey replies that the master is not “giving enough” – peanuts, that is.

How long is this monkey show going to go on?

How long will Pakistanis stand for this humiliation?

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The Net Delusion

In this brilliant lecture Evgeny Morozov asks if free information means free people? The event was recorded on 19 January 2011 in LSE’s Sheikh Zayed Theatre. It was moderated by Alison Powell.

Available as: mp3 (38 MB; approx 82 minutes)

At the start of the twenty-first century we were promised that the internet would liberate the world. We could come together as never before, and from Iran’s ‘twitter revolution’ to Facebook ‘activism’, technological innovation would spread democracy to oppressed peoples everywhere. We couldn’t have been more wrong. Morozov destroys this myth, arguing that ‘internet freedom’ is an illusion, and that technology has failed to help protect people’s rights. Not only that – in many cases the internet is actually helping authoritarian regimes. From China to Russia to Iran, oppressive governments are using cyberspace to stifle dissent: planting clandestine propaganda, employing sophisticated digital censorship and using online surveillance. We are all being manipulated in more subtle ways too – becoming pacified by the net, instead of truly engaging. This event marks the publication of Evgeny Morozov’s new book The Net Delusion: How Not to Liberate The World.

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Wikileaks as a modern challenge

by Farid Farid

One of Australia’s most acclaimed authors, Tim Winton, has re-released Land’s Edge: A Coastal Memoir. Through a series of autobiographical reflections, Winton describes how Australia is a littoral society always on “the edge of things” – floods, bushfires, riots etc… Winton talks about the sensuality of water being central to the Australian imaginary. Through his prose about surfing and sharks, readers can also envision human cargo packed on a floating boat teetering between life and death.

It is perhaps then fitting that this was underscored a couple of days ago by the enthusiastic reception by foreign minister Kevin Rudd and defence minister Stephen Smith of their British counterparts William Hague and Liam Fox at the HMAS Watson on a naval base in Sydney harbour. In an ironic scene on the water, the Australian government’s foreign image untarnished by floods or asylum seekers was tactfully kept and strategic interests were shared between “cousins on opposite sides of the world” according to Hague and Fox.

Hague & Fox in their joint opinion piece for the Sydney Morning Herald opt for a turgid title that spells out their foreign policy objectives — ‘Stronger alliance required to meet modern challenges’. They probably had Wikileaks in mind as one of these trans-national challenges with both countries agreeing to tighten intelligence cooperation against cyber crimes.

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WikiLeaks: Why it Matters. Why it Doesn’t?

A panel of leading thinkers explore WikiLeaks and its implications for access to information, security, first amendment rights, innovation, and more. Moderated by The Real News founder Paul Jay and presented by the Churchill Club, the panel speakers are Daniel Ellsberg, Clay Shirky, Neville Roy Singham, Peter Thiel and Jonathan Zittrain.

The Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL): Prerequisites for Injustice?

Omar Nashabe delivers the LSE Global Governance public lecture.

This event was recorded on 18 January 2011 in Hong Kong Theatre, Clement House
The indictment of the STL in the Hariri assassination case is expected to be filed soon. However there are suspicions that the judicial process has been politically manipulated. This lecture will attempt to show that there have been serious flaws in the STL as an international mechanism for achieving justice. Omar Nashabe received a PhD in Criminal Justice; he serves as editor of the justice section of al-Akhbar newspaper and advisor on human rights and prisons to the Lebanese government. In 2007 he published The Roumieh Prison, if it could speak [in Arabic] with Dar as-Saqi, Beirut/London. The event was chaired by  Professor Susan Marks.
Available as: mp3 (51 MB; approx 112 minutes)
Editor’s note: Unfortunately the first few minutes of the lecture are missing from the podcast.
Event Posting: The Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL): Prerequisites for Injustice?

Helen Thomas on the perils of criticizing Israel in the US media

A remarkably fair and respectful segment on legendary journalist Helen Thomas from CNN.