Jewbonics

Norman Finkelstein on BDS and Palestinian Strategy

Jewbonic — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 05:57:23 +0000

Arguing the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Campaign with Norman Finkelstein from HuffPoMonitor on Vimeo.

Apparently Finkelstein asked initially that it be taken down, as he realized that it was destructive. It was but a number of Zionist sites re-uploaded it, so it's entered circulation.

Technorati Tags: BDS, Israel, Norman Finkelstein, Palestine, Zionism

Salim Tamari on Palestinian strategy While you are there (although I don’t disagree with the...
One State, Two States: Who is the Subject of Palestinian Liberation? My essay, “One State, Two States: Who is the Subject...
Historian writes of ‘pleasure’ at murder of pro-Palestinian activist Not that Vik needs anyone’s defense, and so there’s no...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Al Qaeda Rising in Syria?

Jewbonic — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 14:04:50 +0000

Here is the NYT openly reporting that the Jordan Muslim Brotherhood as well as Al Qaeda are taking part in the Syrian conflict by sending in “jihadists.” Also reporting the words of an arms trader: “Five months ago I was told that the Syrian brothers are in need of weapons” – this in an uprising we’ve been told for months on end is “mostly” non-violent or “mostly” unarmed. Or skip the qualifiers, entirely unarmed. The paper is also reporting that according to "unidentified American officials" the Aleppo bombing, which opposition informants were quick to blame on the Assad government, was the work of Al Qaeda.

Some still seem to be under the impression that the Free Syrian Army is an adjunct of the Zapatistas. For them, I recommend the materialist imperialists of the NYT:

In Jordan, the influential Muslim Brotherhood issued a call to arms of its own, calling it a duty for Muslims everywhere to oppose Mr. Assad’s government in Syria in a holy war, using any means necessary. “Supporting the Syrian people and Free Syrian Army is a duty, as they are facing the injustice and oppression of the regime,” the group said on its Web site.

Do leftists or kindred freedom fighters accept the support of those calling for a “holy war”? I don’t think so, nor do they carry out public hangings.

Against those going on about the disgusting and murderous Russian veto, Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov said today that “In other words, it is necessary to agree to something like a cease-fire, but the tragedy is that the armed groups that are confronting the forces of the regime are not subordinate to anyone and are not under control.” The armed forces of the Syrian government won’t agree to a cease-fire until the terrorist mujahedeen also agree to withdraw from the fray. The problem is that they there’s no one to whom they necessarily answer. Funding is a separate issue, coming from Gulf Cooperation Council states and also as the archives will doubtless show in 30 years, the United States.

It won’t be enough to take down the Assad government, merely enough to further militarize the uprising. As Patrick Cockburn notes, “Untrained militias and Syrian army deserters cannot stop armoured columns. Most probably insurgent leaders know this and their real intention is to do enough militarily to provide political cover for creeping international intervention on their side. This might be sold as a Nato-protected safe haven for insurgents and refugees in north-west Syria, but in fact would be a declaration of war.”

Prince Saud of Saudi Arabia, which is probably sending in arms – some will cavil at my “probably,” insisting that we have documentary evidence before accusing the reactionary Saudi Kingdom of doing something nasty in the region – said that “The lack of commitment of the Syrian government is obvious…What Syria is witnessing is not racist, nor sectarian, nor guerrilla war, but a mass purge without any humanitarian considerations.” As opposed to in the area near Qatif, in eastern Saudi Arabia, where the crackdown continues and the Saudi mukhabarat have killed several protesters over the last week as they broke up a non-violent protest there.

Technorati Tags: Al Qaeda, Assad, FSA, Muslim Brotherhood, Syria

No to Intervention in Syria Readers of Joseph Massad’s recent editorial on the defeat of...
Syria through the non-Western Gaze But Homs was an eye-opener. We reached a spot barely...
So there are Hezbollah mercenaries in the Syrian army? This is also idiotic: the “Free Syrian Army” has told...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Salafist Nour Party may form Egypt cabinet with Muslim Brotherhood

Jewbonic — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 03:00:04 +0000

The Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party is considering creating a coalition with the Salafi Al Nour party. Together they got about 70 percent of the seats in the Egyptian parliament. I think this would be a step forward for the Egyptian insurrection. That way when they both utterly screw up in their management of the Egyptian economy, they can fall together.

Technorati Tags: Al Nour, economy, Egypt, Jan25, Muslim Brotherhood, Tahrir

the Muslim Brotherhood understands the army’s position on strikes Hesham Sallam has a brilliant piece in Jadaliyya on the...
The USG’s (slightly) reluctant romance with the Muslim Brotherhood Watch very carefully how the NYT presents this story on...
Egyptian Popular Diplomacy The Salafi Al-Nour Party in Egypt just announced that it...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Khader Adnan’s Appeal Rejected

Jewbonic — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 23:03:17 +0000

Palestinian political prisoner Khader Adnan, who was arrested on 17 December 2011, is now on the 60^th day of his hunger strike. His appeal was rejected yesterday by a military judge who approved the administrative detention order, under which Adnan is being held without charges. That order was issued on January 8, and said that Adnan is to be held for four months. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have both said that Israel should either charge or release Adnan, while Al Jazeera recently took belated notice that Adnan is a human being by covering his hunger strike.

Thousands of Palestinian political prisoners recently joined Adnan in his hunger strike. In Palestinian political prisoners is condensed the entire Palestinian struggle. In an atmosphere that seeks to depoliticize the Palestinian struggle by making it one of abstract or “essential” humanitarianism in Gaza, by reducing it to questions of economic growth viz. the hallucinatory economic “miracle” in the West Bank, by imposing a phantom un-sovereign sovereignty through peace plans that fall far short of minimal Palestinian national political demands, the thousands of Palestinian prisoners are a reminder that resistance continues, and Adnan’s hunger strike is an indelible reminder that there are struggles which cannot be bleached of their political character.

Hunger strikes tend to last no longer than fifty-five to seventy-five days. After that the hunger strikers die.

Adnan is on his 60^th day.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Kader Adnan, Palestine, Zionism

the prisoner swap I will believe that the swap between the Palestinians and...
more on the prisoner swap Shin Bet chief Yoram Cohen comments on the prisoner exchange...
Urgent Appeal to Occupy and All Social Justice Movements: Mobilize to Defend the Egyptian Revolution Urgent Appeal to Occupy and All Social Justice Movements: Mobilize...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

The Israeli Summer and the Occupation

Jewbonic — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 16:47:09 +0000

More at The Real News

Technorati Tags: #J14, Israel, Lia Tarachansky, Palestine, political economy, Shir Hever, Zionism

also, liberals, keep blaming the settlers for the occupation In the real world, 77 percent of Israelis oppose returning...
The Social Base of Israeli National Socialism Click here to view the embedded video. I know this...
Israeli “retaliation” So what has been happening over the past few days?...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Egyptian General Strike

Jewbonic — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 01:17:12 +0000

Click here to view the embedded video.

By the time you watch this video, the Egyptian general strike will likely have begun.

Cf. Salma Said: "I think that the impasse in the revolution right now is because we've reached a dead-end in our escalation tactics...We've tried peaceful demonstrations and peaceful sit-ins...One of the most effective tactics the world over is civil disobedience, when civil disobedience leads to a general strike, this can completely cripple the state...the dictatorial state that is killing and wounding us everyday...And I think that the key to the success of a general strike, or civil disobedience, lies in the participation of the large sectors, the sectors most capable of crippling the machinery of the state, the industrial workers, teachers, and doctors..."; the Egyptian government states regarding the general strike: "We face conspiracies hatched against the homeland, whose goal is to undermine the institutions of the Egyptian state and whose aim is to topple the state itself so that chaos reigns and destruction spreads"; Muslim Brotherhood Secretary-General Mahmoud Hussein adds, "These calls are extremely dangerous and threaten the nation and its future...A general strike would see train traffic halted, no transportation, and no work in factories, institutes or universities...It also means no one would pay taxes to the government, or fees for public utilities, which would damage the already crippled economy and lead to the country's decline."

Hesham Sallam: "Egypt today faces a choice between an officers-politicians pact that could help the country 'transition' to a managed form of limited political competition and participation, versus a much more comprehensive process of revolutionary change dictated and advanced by popular pressures and demands"; Shana Marshall: "Far from slowing down in the face of economic uncertainty or concerns over political stability on the part of arms exporters, co-production agreements and technology transfers may be intensifying under the leadership of the interim military government...If SCAF is able to use its executive power to engineer a post-transition system that protects the military’s economic perquisites, the latter will use the tactics described above to augment the share of the economy already under military control. This is only likely to increase the longer SCAF remains in control of the political system, allowing the military to shape electoral outcomes and legal frameworks."

Technorati Tags: Arab Spring, counterevolution, Egypt, GCC, general strike, Jan25, revolution

Watching the Oakland General Strike “Other demonstrators, some affiliated with established community groups, said they...
Oakland General Strike: “The Eyes of the World Are on Our City” Angela Davis said, “We support Occupy Oakland, but we...
Notes on the Egyptian Uprising The ripples from the January 25 insurrection continue to rock...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

The Principled Stance of Bahrain

Jewbonic — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 22:16:56 +0000

I understand and respect the reasons for which Palestinian leaders have refrained from interfering in the internal politics of the states of the Middle East. Yet here is Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas visiting Bahrain as part of a regional tour and blithely accepting the “principled stance” of the Bahraini leadership regarding its “support for the Palestinian people in its struggle for its inalienable rights and the establishment of its independent state, with Jerusalem as its capital.” This is the Bahrain that has spent months murdering its people and destroying the second most important regional revolt, after Egypt. Bahrain also just co-sponsored a Security Council resolution on Syria – vetoed by Russia and China – and included in that resolution was a clause calling on the Syrian government to “withdraw all Syrian military and armed forces from cities and towns, and return them to their original home barracks,” yet without calling on the mujahedeen running amok in Syria to “withdraw.” Of course, not being responsible to anyone except their paymasters, including most likely co-sponsors of the resolution like France, the United Kingdom, the United States, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, and U.A.E, and Saudi Arabia, there is no way to get them to withdraw. Which all of those forces know very well, especially as they most likely are slipping them funding and weapons through third parties.

Syria is also Hamas’s safe harbor, and they are unlikely to find a better one at the moment in the Arab world. Meanwhile the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, which has fully accepted both neo-liberal and normalization with Israel, has been leaning on Hamas to leave Damascus. This is the trap of Hamas and Fateh’s strategy of bourgeois nationalism as the form of the Palestinian national liberation struggle: they find themselves making alliances with regimes which hold them up with one hand while slitting their throat with the other.

Technorati Tags: Bahrain, Egypt, Israel, Muslim Brotherhood, Palestine, Zionism

Egyptian Popular Diplomacy The Salafi Al-Nour Party in Egypt just announced that it...
Does Israel Want Chaos? Someone referred me to this article in the Economist on...
when our enemies are more honest than our friends: Ben Ami on Walt and Mearsheimer Here’s a reflection at Alternet (missing the point, but that’s...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Tahrir’s Response to the Muslim Brotherhood

Jewbonic — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 00:47:32 +0000

Made by Mosireen

Related posts: “As long as they remain steadfast and hold their ground in Tahrir, my son Ahmed is alive.” Click here to view the embedded video. After the atrocious... The USG’s (slightly) reluctant romance with the Muslim Brotherhood Watch very carefully how the NYT presents this story on... the Muslim Brotherhood understands the army’s position on strikes [...] Related posts:

“As long as they remain steadfast and hold their ground in Tahrir, my son Ahmed is alive.” Click here to view the embedded video. After the atrocious...
The USG’s (slightly) reluctant romance with the Muslim Brotherhood Watch very carefully how the NYT presents this story on...
the Muslim Brotherhood understands the army’s position on strikes Hesham Sallam has a brilliant piece in Jadaliyya on the...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

One State, Two States: Who is the Subject of Palestinian Liberation?

Jewbonic — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 00:42:56 +0000

My essay, "One State, Two States: Who is the Subject of Palestinian Liberation?" is up at MRZine.

One state or two? Boycott of Israeli goods or goods from the settlements? Is the lobby the genesis of American wrongdoing in Palestine or is it imperialism? The questions -- regarding vision, strategy, and analysis -- produce sharp cleavages on the Left. Indeed, generally ones much deeper than they need to be. And they remain stubbornly unsettled.

They also congeal in the person of Norman Finkelstein, who has taken some unpopular positions -- his insistent call for a two-state solution, his references to "cultish" aspects of BDS -- as well as more popular ones, like blaming the occupation solely on the Israel lobby. For that reason he has become a lightning rod, attracting furious bolts of criticism and support. The core issues, however, remain obscured amidst a charged atmosphere of extravagant denunciations (catcalls of Zionism and worse) from one side and fierce defenses from the other.

From one perspective, it's an odd contretemps. Finkelstein has spent decades fighting for Palestinian dignity and a place for Palestinians to live free of the occupation's suffocating violence and capricious indignities. He is the maverick scholar who exposed the American intellectual community as a gaggle of hacks by dissecting Joan Peters's From Time Immemorial, showing it to be a hoax intended to deny the Palestinians peoplehood by painting them as peripatetics who had fabricated a "Palestinian" identity to ride the wave of Israel's successful nation-building project. And his forensic dismantling of Israeli scholarly mythologies in Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict remains one of the very best primers on the prejudices that surround the conflict.

For all that time his fight has been for a two-state settlement: something that seemed reasonable in 1988 and in the early 1990s. But what seemed possible twenty years ago -- with the Israeli electorate temporarily shaken by the savage repression of the 1st intifada and Israeli capital needing to recover from the aftermath of the destabilizing military-industrial accumulation patterns of the 1970s and 1980s, break through the sectoral envelope of domestic accumulation, and globalize -- seems less possible now, with militarized accumulation again on the rise in the Middle East and elsewhere. In some ways, the argument for two states has become a relic when so much of the discourse (less so the organizing) of the radical pro-Palestinian Left in the West and the Palestinian Left in the Occupied Territories is oriented towards one single state.

Please read the comments. They are always the best part.

Technorati Tags: BDS, Israel, Norman Finkelstein, Palestine, Zionism

“I don’t particularly buy the argument that Israel is an enormous asset to the United States.” In an otherwise excellent interview with the Socialist Worker, Ali...
Walkout at Wayne State University Technorati Tags: Israel, Palestine, Wayne State [...]...
Salim Tamari on Palestinian strategy While you are there (although I don’t disagree with the...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

The Maspero Sit In

Jewbonic — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 01:52:59 +0000

The amber streetlights standing sentry over the Nile Cornice running in front of the communications building in the Maspero complex in downtown Cairo do something odd to peoples’ coloration at night, flattening and softening bright colors, turning the assemblages of people into a chiaroscuro – here and there a green laser lacing through the smoke and smog to mark out one of the snipers perched in the windows of the hulking rotunda.

The building is studded with huge communications antennae on top. It is from there that the government puts out its propaganda, and for that reason it has been targeted by protesters, who started a sit-in there on January 26. I spent the evenings of the 26^th and the 27^th there.

Tahrir is vast, central, telegenic, and symbolically important. But it has also taken on too festive an air, activists tell me. There have been mild clashes between revolutionaries and activists, insistent that the fight for freedom in Egypt has scarcely begun, and those who are eager to settle into the parliament and institutionalize their electoral gains: the Freedom and Justice Party of the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Nour, the Salafi Party.

They both did well, far better than activists expected in the last election. But their strength is overstated, and will be evanescent. They have no social program except their welfare networks, and for Egypt’s teeming poor, that won’t be enough. The question isn’t political Islam. It’s political economy. I spoke for a while with one man during the sit-in about this. After telling me about regime propaganda against the panoply of ideologically hard-left protesters – the Revolutionary Socialists, with their yellow first clenched in the midst of a red flag, the anarchists, the libertarian socialists, and others – I asked him if he was affiliated with any of those tendencies. No, he told me, he just liked some of their ideas, and it was too bad that the regime was so intent on demonizing them through the information blitz from the Maspero. Then I asked him if he had participated in the last round of elections. Yes, he told me, he had voted for the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafi.

“But they are terrible, I voted for them, but now I oppose them.” This puzzled me, so I asked him to expand. He said: “FJP and Al Nour fielded the best candidates in my neighborhood, so I voted for them, but now I oppose them, and the struggle continues.” The left did not have a unified position on boycotting the elections in Egypt, and amidst strategic disarray and the welter of choices, many simply did as he did: voted for the best candidate and moved on to the street and the struggle. I also asked him why he chose not to work with any of the leftist tendencies. He responded speaking specifically about the Revolutionary Socialists that “they sometimes speak in a very complex way, which is difficult for even educated people to understand.” He added that everywhere, the revolt was the same, different kinds of protests against the same system. “In New York, in Europe, in Israel.” That surprised me a bit. I had not been aware of how news of the summer social justice protests in Israel had diffused to the ground in the Arab countries, except through the interpretations of their interlocutors.

Anyway, at Maspero, the energy was infectious. The activists were united on the call: “End of military rule!” There were also other additions: “Tantawi is a Zionist” (Tantawi is the Field Marshall of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces). This one is amusing to consider in light of those who either dishonestly or hallucinogenically hold that the revolutionaries have no foreign policy goals. Domestic reconstruction will be the first step, but everyone knows the simple truth that if radical populism or democracy begin to take root in Egypt, the détente with Israel, the collaboration in the encaging of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip – that will all end. Later someone brought a mock-up of a gallows. I am sure that they are quite serious about it, another reason that the SCAF is clinging so tightly to power.

For a while, people allowed a single lane of traffic to pass, but eventually some group made the decision to stud the roadway with large rocks, blocking traffic. Then they started directing cars in various other directions – during moments of mobilization in the square and elsewhere the popular committees take control of traffic flows. At that point people promptly sat down in the middle of the roadway. There were probably at least 7000 there when I left. Amazing in comparison to the Egypt of 24 months ago, when normal numbers at a protest were 70, but an order of magnitude short of what it would take to effectively besiege Maspero, which has metal grates over the windows of the first two stories, and where every office is guarded by a member of the military with a .50 caliber turret-mounted rifle, another activist told me. I saw one of those rifles in the press office when I was in there over the summer. With the right ammunition, such rifles can put holes in tanks. I don’t know what they can do to people, but if enough people keep up the pressure on Maspero long enough, I do not doubt that the military won’t be worried about finding out.

Technorati Tags: Cairo, Egypt, Jan25, Maspero, Tahrir

Dispatch from Egypt: Revolution 2.0 Comrade Sarah Hawas writes in from revolutionary Cairo: The horror...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.