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The War of Ideas in the Middle East
The great achievement of George Orwell's "1984" was to invent concepts which are now common parlance 60 years later. It was a brilliantly original creation.
However it would have been better for us today if he had not written it. Too many politicians, not only Neocons, have used it for inspiration.
The image of poverty where the tobacco falls out of cigarettes if held vertically is also our future. The necessary product of the political concepts Orwell invented.
Even if the term "Palestine Firster" existed, it would not mean the same as "Israel Firster". "Palestine Firster" could only mean someone who is interested in the Palestinians and their welfare. "Israel Firster" goes much further, and means someone who puts the interests of Israel in front of those of the USA. I have never heard of anyone who puts the interests of Palestine before those of the USA. No point in inventing a term for people who do not exist.
I didn't mean literally war. Rather all-out conflict
Let's hold our horses.
The Turkish declaration does not imply outright war.
The other factors, such as Syria, could well modify their attitude.
I thought that the disturbance was very well done, and well planned.
A number of objectors stood up at the beginning, and were taken out by the security people. As a result BBC3 stopped its live broadcast. They took it up again, but I am not sure quite when. At the beginning of the second piece, another group stood up, and made their opposition evident, and were taken out by the security. At this point, BBC3 stopped its live broadcast permanently.
I don't have a precise account, as I wasn't listening.
I thought it was a great success for BDS. Although the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra was not prevented from finishing its performance, the normal live broadcast ended up by being turned off.
I thought the objectors did pretty well.
The issue here is not whether Derfner was right or wrong, but rather why he retracted his original statement.
I recognise that whether Derfner was right or wrong is a legitimate subject of discussion, and it's been well aired.
The issue of why he retracted is more important, and it's been briefly referred to above.
It is obvious that he was pressured, by societal opinion. And he didn't want to become a renegade. Much like Goldstone.
Pressure from one's society is very common, it exists all over the world. For example, my Jordanian friend fasts in Ramadan, though he is by no means a believer, indeed he is a great drinker. He prefers whisky, I believe.
"I can’t recall an instance of your condemning the deliberate terrorist attacks on civilians in Eilat, only commenting on the Israeli."
So why was it deliberate, and the Israeli killing of Palestinian civilians only accidental?
It sounds to me much the same. Civilians happened to be in the wrong place, and they died.
Israel organised a 'black' operation in order to satisfy Netanyahu's political needs, with Palestinans or Egyptians to carry it out, for deniability.
Unfortunately, too many Israelis died.
It was a mistake, like the 'mistake' that led to the deaths of so many Palestinians.
The funny thing was, the comment thread to that article was exactly the same as what the author was complaining about: a "relentless" barrage of messaging from the pro-Israel claque.
Naturally my comment pointing this out was removed by the moderators.
The Guardian, though as open as any of the western MSM, still has a fair number of pro-Israel editors, particular among the moderators of the comment threads, and they remove anything which is too strongly anti-Israel. On the other hand you can be as racist as you like against Islam on those threads.
Me, as a mere European, I thought Netanyahu's reaction to Obama was a big mistake.
In relation to the US, the strategy may well work, though it's always a mistake to reveal your real aims. Here, no doubt, the point is to get rid of Obama, but that is a subsidiary aim. The more important point for him is to clear the West Bank of Palestinians.
The point I wanted to make is that Netanyahu's reaction is likely to have a bad effect outside the US. OK, Britain has its equivalent of AIPAC, and probably France does too, through Sarkozy, though I don't know the details. But they are not as dominant as AIPAC. There are limits beyond which AIPAC-clone-influenced politicians can't take their people. Netanyahu may have broken those limits, through his strident declarations.
OK, Europe doesn't matter, but it does mean that the US and Israel are increasingly isolated in their eternal dance. The loser is certainly the US.
The US has shown itself openly to be subject to Israel. That's a mistake. Every time in the past that the Jewish community has dominated, it's been through restraint, and quietly following the paths of power, as in the Ottoman empire.
Openly declaring your domination implies resistance.
I haven't checked back on the details, but as far as I remember from my Middle Eastern economic history classes when I was a student, the contract signed between the Khedive Ismail and Ferdinand de Lesseps was highly favourable to the French entrepreneur, and amongst other things specified that Egypt would provide the labour for digging the canal for free. This was then achieved by a corvée (forced labour service) of Egyptian peasants.
It was not slave labour, as Wiki says, but forced free service by Egyptian peasants. The same, they say, as built the Pyramids.
Ismail was a fool, borrowed money right and left on the international market, and Egypt was bankrupt six years later.
I don't think I'd realised that these major investments in plant in Israel, were being done against economic logic, and only for sentimental reasons. But Potsherd's link is very clear. It's a fix, that sooner or later will fail.
Sounds like Saddam and his investment in his home town of Tikrit. Long history of such failures, right back to crazy Roman emperors.
our old Jewish friend told an anecdote about a Jewish person getting kicked out of one of the old cricket clubs in Philadelphia.
It's classic, isn't it, that your friend was talking about an event which must have occurred forty, fifty, or more years ago, whereas your wife was talking about the present moment.
The mind mythologises the past. Things were so much simpler then. That's because all those problems have been defined and resolved. (Actually things weren't simpler) And the mind has organised its version of the past, which can be trotted out any time an anecdote is called for.
You should boycott Payapl: they've frozen the Wikileaks account.
Rubbish! There's plenty of new stuff, or formal confirmation.
If it was banal, do you think US Gov would react like it has?
Ha Ha! I'm sure you have seen that Netanyahu is playing the same trick with Brit Foreign Secretary William Hague, as he did with Joe Biden.
"Israel halts 'dialogue' with UK over war crimes law"
link to bbc.co.uk
Humiliate Hague while he is there in Israel. Then deny that any significance is intended. No doubt at the same time winding up Jewish leaders in UK to threaten withdrawal of financial support.
I guess the idea should be a variant of what he did to Biden. Because play the same trick twice is not usually wise.
No doubt, Netanyahu thinks David Cameron is as soft a touch as Obama. He could be right.
The trick might work, but I'm not sure. I don't think the situation is the same. There's not the same tradition of close relationship between the financiers and the political parties. The Brits have a way of delivering a diplomatic reply, which might finish the affair without anything happening.
There's all sorts of speculations one might make about what the trick might really be, but I don't know whether speculation is useful without more information.
No link, I see. I bet you it's quoted from an Israeli site.
100% of translations from Arabic cited on Israeli sites, that I've checked out, have turned out to be mistranslations - I guess intentional, intended to crank up an idea of anti-semitism.
And that includes the Hamas charter.
A delicate reflection.
Yes, it is true that everybody has "tribal" feelings, belongs to an identity, nay, multiple identities - family, local quarter, region, nationality, etc., at different levels.
By the way, it is not necessarily only community, it is also sexual: males belong to the "tribe" of men, females to that of women.
The identity seems to me to be made up of the sum of the historical experiences of the group. For example, to look outside the community area, although now liberated, women still decorate themselves, although the origin of the practice was men wanting to prove their wealth by decorating their women.
Of course no individual necessarily follows the rules, though they may be subject to community pressure, as you say.
What is striking in the case of the Jewish community is how much stronger it is than other identities of the same level. It is said to be the strongest community identity in the world. The nearest approaches are the Armenians and the Chinese. You don't mention this vital point of strength of identity. I am a Brit, even an Englishman, an identity probably reinforced by the fact that I work in France, but I don't feel we are going to be wiped out if Britain leaves the European Union, as they are always threatening to do.
In my view, identity is built of a series of historical experiences, which refine and define the community. According to what I understand, the Hebrews were not different from other Near Eastern peoples before the Babylonian exile. The Romans and the destruction of the Temple, created the non-territorial Jewish community, with an ideal of Jerusalem. The separate Jewish community was confirmed in Poland (and Russia), though I don't know much about that. The techniques used by AIPAC today are derived from those used by the Jewish community in Ottoman Istanbul.
It is the details of history which have sent the Jewish community in one direction, and Christianity and Islam, both derived from Judaism, in others. Of course, no one individual necessarily follows the rules. Most communities are defined by a core. And there are many others who connect to a greater or lesser extent.
The "tribe" of Jews in the US, facing no particular opposition, may be tending to dissipate. Others, such as in Israel, may find the identity more useful.
It's sad, really. Obama had great ideas, but he doesn't have the backbone to put his ideas into effect. He should have pushed for his ideas, and risked losing the second term. No-one believes now that if he has a second term, he will do better.
Better to admit that he will be a one-term president and do what has to be done.
It may be the only point though where a US president can say no to Israel, is when the mushroom clouds have already been seen. Either through the Stuxnet worm, or a physical attack.
I completely agree that they are culpable, in varying degrees, of a terrible crime that is robbing another people of any chance of a decent life. My real point is that they do not deserve a death sentence.
This is genuinely bizarre, Mr. Samel. Both Israel and the US conduct "targetted killings", that is, executions carried out without bothering about trivia such as a trial, the only evidence of guilt being in the minds of the persecutors. One can't complain about Palestinians doing the same.
As I said above, what makes it that Jewish Settlers have a right to better treatment than others?
I can't see the point of contorted special pleading for Israeli settlers. Nobody else gets the same delicacy of treatment.
As for the arms being for self-defence, that's a big joke. They have to defend themselves because they are committing a crime. Any reasonable person would want to stop them.
Even the pregnant woman was knowingly taking part in the commission of a crime.
It is not a question of what the public in Europe thinks. The Israelis target those in power. You should have seen the speed with which the British (Labour) government reacted, when a warrant was issued for the arrest of Livni, with fulsome apologies and promises of change to the law. Although support for Israel is very low in public opinion.
P.S. On the Never again front, France and other European countries are turning on the Roma, fellow victims of the Jews during the Holocaust, seeking to expel them and destroy their camps. Read Ethel Brooks, a US Romany writer, in the Guardian.
Superficial remark on a complicated issue. An American such as Brooks writing about this subject is as believable as Europeans writing about US politics (automatically dismissed). Certainly Sarkozy was stupid in making a public statement of policy, but the same reactions are occurring all over Europe, from Denmark to Spain. The reaction is visceral, not thought out.
Gut reactions happen, particularly in France, where I live. The Roma might make more of an effort to fit in with society, as is usual with immigrants, but they don't. They are happy to advertise their separateness, and it leads to gut reactions.
The comments on Ethel Brooks' article are to read, as they show the variety of opinions, but there's little from southern or middle Europe, where the problem is the same.
I was under the impression that this approach had already been widely discussed, at least in the blogs. I don't have the links, as I don't have a library of references, but I'm sure others do.
The dangers are obvious, as syvanen lists. It means that land seizure will continue, and the details signed, probably vague, will be forgotten before anybody thinks of putting them into effect.
The Obama regime knows this, Israel knows it, and so do the Palestinians. It seems to me a poor trick, as everyone can see through it. So I wonder whether the report is true.
Alternatively, there's something more behind it that we do not know. Obama may be only interested in addressing the Jewish interest in the States, for electoral reasons. Or things may really go in a different direction from this start point. I don't know.
This book sounds to me like excessively intellectual. So-called anti-Semitism among the Arabs has nothing to do with Western anti-semitism. It is purely anti-Israel, though I don't deny the result flows over into what the West calls anti-semitism, through lack of care. Much the same Islamophobia comes from hasbarists, equally careless of the details.
To repeat the obvious, Islam had a very good relationship with Judaism until the creation of the State of Israel. Then Israeli Zionists started to smear Islam, and so it goes.
It is not worth an intellectual defence. The issue is not logical but political.
Amin al-Husseini went to Nazi Germany, simply to find an ally against the British. The pre-Israel Zionists also sought allies in all quarters.
I'm rebelling against excessive intellectualism, although I work in France, where Achkar had his education.
This piece particularly irritated me, as someone who worked in Iraq under Saddam, and has continued to work on since then.
It is retrospective, presuming that the same conditions as exist today, would have existed without the invasion.
Saddam was such a powerful, dominating personality, that he would have remained in power until his death. After the Shi'a revolt of 1991, no-one would have dared contest his power. He was executed at around the age of 67, one could imagine a much longer life without the invasion. He knew when people were about to revolt, and shot them personally, according to report. He much admired Stalin. His regime was brutal and ugly - I met them - but the opposition had pretty much given up.
Secondly, as Palmyra reminds us above, the sectarian conflict in Iraq is a product of the invasion. It didn't exist before. Sunni and Shi'a got on well together. There were many Shi'a in Saddam's regime. Even the idea of the independence of Kurdistan was stimulated by Peter Galbraith's advice, followed by the Israeli "advisors" who flooded into Kurdistan.
In all this debate, there's very little discussion of what Arabs actually think. Mark Lynch has a good sense, but it is not analysed.
There is, in the Arab Sunni world, a great fear of the Shi'a. This is historical and goes back many centuries. Sunni domination in the Arab world goes back to the Abbasid Caliphate, but it was contested, and the under-player was often Shi'i. Often today's reaction against the Shi'a is irrational, for example King Abdullah of Jordan, he is not threatened by the Shi'a, but he says it nevertheless.
This fear plays out in local situations. I have often seen Sunni Arabs of Iraq express the most irrational fears of the Shi'a; at least there it is to a degree understandable, as the Sunnis have lost power. In Saudi Arabia, the visceral Sunni fear of the Shi'a is expressed in the fear of the ruling elite of losing power to the large Shi'a population in the Eastern Province. The same in other Gulf States.
In sum, I don't think fear of the Shi'a is limited to the authoritarian elites, but it exists where there is a threat.
Evidently Israel is playing on this fear.
The question is: is this fear stronger than the resentment of Israel? Most Arabs don't have strong feelings about Iran; it's another country. However Islam could be stronger than Sunni-Shi'a, that is an attack by a non-Muslim power could produce greater opposition.
If, as the Israelis claim, the Saudis will lower their defences, when the planes pass over to attack Iran, it may be that there will be no immediate reaction. The consequences further on however are incalculable. No-one knows how the reaction will work out. A negative reaction could be fatal for the Saudi and Gulf regimes. It's a judgement to make for them. I can understand why some Gulfi authority figures may make statements in favour of an attack upon Iran, but I suspect there are many others who are opposed.
It's a game, but a dangerous one. Let through the planes, and one hopes that the population does not react. If they do, it's the end for the regime. Or maybe they feel that they don't have the power to resist, and they might as well allow the overpass. At any rate a very dangerous game. Saudi, like anywhere, is not a united country.
Of course, it's true, as Karl says, that petro-economies are special, as a very high percentage of the GDP accrues to the state. I don't know whether there's enough evidence to make generalisations about what happens to states in that situation.
In Iraq, the situation is clear. It was specific. There was very little sectarian conflict before the 2003 invasion. Ask any Iraqi. The Kurds felt a certain degree apart, particularly after Saddam's attacks in the 1980s, but the independentist policy of today is a product of Peter Galbraith's advice, and that of the Israeli advisors in Kurdistan.
As for the Sunni-Shi'a split, that non-existent divide had to be created, a necessary vehicle for divide-and-rule. There is plenty of evidence that it was the US behind the Samarra bombing. But the Iraqis, sensibly, don't want to contest the matter. Better to ease the US out, by pretending that the US won, and that their presence is no longer necessary.
Little of this corresponds with Prof Karl's theory. Saddam was not on the way out before the invasion. He dominated by personal will, and he would have remained in power till he died.
It is true that the new contest for power should be a contest for oil rents. I'm not sure that it is though. It's more a contest of ethnic rivalities, with the oil issue in the background.
According to my Ramadhan calendar, Id al-Fitr is expected on the 10th, not the 11th. But of course it could fall on the 11th, if the authorities don't see the new moon.
I should think what will happen is that al-Azhar, or whoever people follow these days, will conveniently see the new moon on the tenth, whether or not there is anything to see.
Even if these splits do exist, I don't quite see what mechanisms could lead to a change of point of view among the Democrats. Dem pols say what they have to. No one's going to step out of line until someone gives them a model.
I would say: got to it, keep at it. You're getting there.
Last year in April, in an occasional visit to the US, I participated in a meeting in San Francisco with the Angry Arab, and the Israeli Consul. It was the first time that I'd heard of an Israeli being shouted down in the US.
How much progress has been made since then, only a year ago.
Today, it's a question of universities being forced by their financiers not to divest of Israel.
The issue of the Palestinian Christians is basic to today's controversies, and should be much more thought about, than has been the case.
The Christians are evidently the descendants of the ancient Palestinians, converted to Christianity in Roman times, and became Arabic-speaking later. They have as much right to the land as Jews. They cannot be accused of being recent invaders.
One hasbara commenter tried to suggest that the Christians were the descendants of the Crusaders. That is ridiculous; there were very few Crusaders, unable to create a new population. No doubt the genealogical history of Palestinians over the centuries is complicated, as is that of Jews.
What is evidently the case, is that the new invading population, who created the State of Israel, treated the ancient population, at least the part who'd been there since the third millennium BC or before, as inferior natives. Precisely as the Crusaders did.
Somewhat OT, but I've been noticing a decline in the activity of the hasbarists recently. There are less defences of Israel than there used to be.
I've been wondering why it is. It is not only here. Is it that blog owners like Phil exclude hasbara more successfully? Or is it that the hasbara controllers have given up on blogs like Mondoweiss as irremediable, and are concentrating on blogs where someone is likely to listen? Such as Washington Note.
No. Chess was invented in Iran.
50,000 is still a lot, and the troops in Afghanistan remain a better target
Great photo, though I suppose it is not of the actual event.
The question is, is this activity a violation of SC resolution 1701 (right number?)? I would say yes, you don't have to touch the ground. Perhaps it is an overflight, which the Israelis carry out every day.