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Egypt’s Dignity Revolution

By SALWA ISMAIL | CounterPunch | February 10, 2011

In commenting on the unfolding Egyptian revolution, media and analysts have emphasised the role of social media in building up networks of dissidents and facilitating the organisation of protests. Some have credited the ‘Facebook generation’ with lighting the spark of collective action. Undoubtedly, social media activists, in calling for ‘the day of anger’, put the tools of virtual communication to remarkable use. However these ‘days of anger’ can only be understood if we look at what the vast majority of Egyptians have experienced over the last three decades under Mubarak’s rule.

Successive waves of protests by wide segments of the population, particularly over the last decade, have also given a clear indication of growing opposition to the regime’s economic and social policies and its instruments of government and control. Prior to the recent protests, there were numerous massive strikes by textile workers demanding better pay, week-long street occupation by tax collectors protesting their low wages, and various sit-ins by university professors, doctors and lawyers calling for policy change.

Under Mubarak, the Egyptian state abandoned its welfare responsibilities and left citizens to fend for themselves. The so called free market became dominated by monopolies and oligopolies, with party elites and regime cronies controlling entire markets in basic and strategic commodities such as iron and steel, cement, and wood. The ruling clique and its business partners appropriated the country’s lands converting publicly-owned property into gated communities and turning entire coastal areas into exclusive resorts for the super rich. Built on vast areas of privatised state land, enclaves like Qatamiyya Heights and Mirage City catered to multi-million dollar palaces for the very privileged few. The scale of the land grab has threatened to deprive future generations of any chance of descent housing and a share of the country’s resources and wealth.

At the same time, masked and not-so-masked privatisation of education and health robbed citizens of the few citizenship rights gained in the country’s post-independence period. Social disparities have grown at extraordinary rates as state offices turned into personal fiefdoms in order to maintain the regime and its clients and to implement the neo-liberal agenda of economic reform.

To try and prevent growing resistance to these economic and social policies, Egypt and the Egyptians became subject to a police government. The Egyptian police departments govern vast areas of social life. They have responsibilities over security and public order, but also have jurisdiction over the regulation of, among other things, outdoor markets, the use of public utilities such as electricity, and the implementation of municipal building codes. With regular outdoor market raids and campaigns to monitor citizens’ use of these utilities, the police intruded into the daily life of ordinary citizens. Endowed with the arbitrary powers of emergency laws, the police engaged in practices of extortion, and used violence to intimidate and silence any questioning of their powers.

Security checks and roadblocks on the streets of Cairo and many other cities were part of Egyptian citizens’ daily reality. Drivers and pedestrians were randomly stopped, arrested and subjected to arbitrary investigation. Young men, feared by the regime for their potential for activism and resistance, were the main target of these practices. The everyday experience of humiliation at the hands of the police fuelled the youth’s opposition and rejection of the regime and its coercive arm, the police.

It was befitting that the revolution had its spectacular beginning on Police Day and that the youth would take the lead in breaking down the barrier of fear that the police have erected over a long period of time. Egypt’s youth have bravely put themselves forward along with vast segments of society to reassert their right to dignity and freedom. They have taken the first steps towards reclaiming their rights and towards exercising fully the responsibilities of citizenship. It is in reference to these objectives that the protesters’ main and most powerful slogan “the people want to bring down the system” should be understood. The desired change is nothing short of an overhaul of the institutions and structures of government.

~

Salwa Ismail is Professor of Politics with reference to the Middle East at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS).

February 11, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Economics, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | Leave a comment

Whose interest?

By Harry Clark | Mondoweiss | February 2, 2011

There is debate about the precise role of Egypt in US Middle East “strategy”, if the word can be used. Stanford historian Joel Beinin, in an interview by Justin Elliott in Salon, claimed that the Arab states, including Egypt, shared equally the US-Israeli animus against Iran.

“And most recently, Mubarak, along with King Abdullah II of Jordan and King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, has been gung-ho for attacking Iran. We know that from the WikiLeaks documents…”

But Historian Gareth Porter and journalist Jim Lobe argue that Saudi Arabia does not share Israel’s enthusiasm for military action. Commenting on the NYT coverage of the Wikileaks cables, they wrote, “Actual Wiki Cables Belie NYT’s Version of Saudi Gulf States’ Stance on Iran”:

“In fact, the cables show that most Gulf Arab regimes – including Saudi Arabia itself – have been seriously concerned about the consequences of a strike against Iran for their own security, in sharp contrast to Israel’s open advocacy of such a strike. They also show the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait expressing that concern with greater urgency in the past two years than previously”

They cite veteran diplomat Chas Freeman and journalist Thomas Lipman as saying that even an approval of military action would fit the pattern of Arab states telling the US what it wants to hear. This applies a fortiori to Egypt, which has no Shia population and is much farther from Iran.

Sasan Fayazmanesh, US-Iranian economist and scholar of the US-Iran relationship, has also skewered the MSM for misconstruing the Wikileaks cables on Iran, and shown the degree to which the US anti-Iran animus is driven by and for Israel. Fayazmanesh writes:

According to this policy, the US would exert pressure on its client states in the Persian Gulf so that they would distance themselves from Iran and get behind Israel. Before becoming president, Barak Obama stated this policy in a speech delivered at the 2007 AIPAC conference (the speech was actually written by Dennis Ross, James B. Steinberg, who is currently the Deputy Secretary of State, and former American Ambassador to Israel Daniel Kurtzer). Obama stated: We have “to persuade other nations, such as Saudi Arabia, to recognize common interests with Israel in dealing with Iran.” Once Obama became president, this policy was enforced vigorously.

Gareth Porter feels that “The main function of the U.S. client state relationship with Egypt was to allow Israel to avoid coming to terms with Palestinian demands.” He argues that “the present strategic crisis can only be resolved by a…historical accommodation… with the ‘resistance bloc’ in the Middle East.”, that is, “Iran, Iraq, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas.”

The sine qua non of that accommodation is a just settlement of the Israel-Palestine issue, which is simply inconceivable in US politics. While the Israel lobby and the costs to the US of the “special relationship” are more visible than ever, there is no indication that its grip on power is slipping. The US has advised Mubarak not to stand for re-election in September. This would keep the regime in place and give the US months to manipulate the outcome. It is a colossal insult to the Egyptian people, and does not remotely reflect the interest of the US, but only of Israel and its US supporters.

Overcoming the lobby will take a struggle in US politics like the Civil War. If it doesn’t materialize, instead of a “historic accommodation with the ‘resistance bloc'” we may see even more historic violence, in a collision of the resistance, now including the
people of Egypt, with the immovable object of US-Israel relations.

February 2, 2011 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

Egypt and the false dilemma — decline and fall

By Michael Collins | Online Journal | February 2, 2011

The people of Egypt have had enough of a failed dictatorship masquerading as a democracy. As events unfold, we’re seeing a cautionary message entering the corporate media coverage of this event. Having never exposed the dire conditions that prompted the massive protests and demands for change, we’re now told that this could negatively impact oil supplies, the stock market, and anti-terror efforts. No foundation for the claims was provided but they’re repeated regularly on CNN, the NBCs, Fox, and the print media.

Thus, a false dilemma is created for the public: support the right of people to determine their own fate or protect your safety and the current standard of living, as it were.

Egypt’s oppressive tyranny

Eighty million Egyptians have suffered under an oppressive regime for thirty years. President Hosni Murbark became Egypt’s president and dictator in 1981 after the assassination of the late President Answer Sadat in 1981. Sadat had just completed a peace treaty with Israel. Since then, Mubarak has ruled through emergency law for all but 18 months. Using this law, the government has the, “right to arrest people without charge, detain prisoners indefinitely, limit freedom of expression and assembly, and maintain a special security court.” The Egyptian parliament extended for two years in May 2010. For those who get too far out of line, there are the famous torture facilities of the national police.

The Egyptian revolution followed the successful peoples uprising in Tunisia just days before. The Egyptian economy has not performed for the people. The majority of Egyptians live in substandard conditions and they see little reason for hope. Conditions were no better in Tunisia. Future hot spots for revolution, Algeria and Yemen, are equally bereft of the conditions that allow for human dignity – gainful employment, health, and safety.

Children are particularly hard hit, one-third of Egypt’s population. A recent UNISEF that, “Increases in child mortality and morbidity, child labour, child exploitation, violence against children and women and other forms of abuse, alongside declines in school attendance and the quality of education, nurture, care and emotional well-being, can all be traced to times of economic crisis.” (Harper et al, 2009). The Egyptian economic crisis has been devastating to children.

The conditions in Egypt are different from those in the United States in terms of income and material wealth. On a structural level, however, the class inequalities mirror those faced here. A robust stock market failed to translate into employment gains or basic benefits for the vast majority. Policies are friendly to businesses but discriminate against worker rights and unions. Privatization has sapped the public coffers.

While conditions were building up to a boiling point, the Egyptian Stock Exchange became a favorite for foreign investors. Somehow, the geniuses on Wall Street convinced President Mubarak to privatize and adopt a market economy [crony capitalism]. He did, the people suffered more, and the results led to the near universal demand that Mubarak step down. The globalization of crony capitalism has reached the point where the main stimulus is revolution.

The false dilemma

The coverage of Egypt’s revolution has been a bit timelier than the Tunisian affair, which the corporate media nearly missed. The initial focus was on events and the questions determining the survival of Hosni Mubarak. Who will win? There was no explanation of conditions prompting the protests. That would legitimize the protesters and foreclose media manipulation that may be needed to continue the three-decade support for the present dictatorship and oligarchy.

A Wall Street Journal article Sunday laid out the talking points for fear mongering and the false dilemma – support a peoples revolution? – take an oil shock and more terror.

US stocks are taking a big hit because of the revolution. We’re supposed to react by thinking, Is this really worth it? The recession may get worse.

“Anti-government protests in Egypt have affected world financial markets, with US stocks suffering the biggest one-day loss in six months.” Egyptian Unrest Has Repercussions in Global Economy Wall Street Journal (WSJ), January 30

The specific fear of oil price increases appears. Somehow, we’re asked to believe that a new government might say, all of a sudden, no more United States ships in the Suez Canal.

“In the short term, the biggest global economic worry remains oil prices. Egypt itself isn’t a big energy producer. But significant shipments of oil and petroleum products pass through Egypt each day on their way from the Mideast to European and U.S. markets.” WSJ 01/30

There is absolutely no basis for this. Therefore, the fabrication is deliberate and ill intended.

Then the Journal trots out an expert who draws a conclusion based on the unproven hypothetical. Once again, there is no basis for saying that there would be any shipping disruptions. Why would a new Egyptian government give up that income or pick a fight with a White House with a record of military aggression?

“If oil shipments through Egypt were disrupted, European supply — and global prices — would be affected tremendously, said Dalton Garis, an associate professor in petroleum-market behavior at the Petroleum Institute, an energy-research center in Abu Dhabi.” WSJ 01/30

The media is like a dog on point. They just can’t give up the notion that we’re headed for an oil shock.

“Apart from Egypt’s role as an energy transporter, fear that unrest could spread to bigger oil producers could exacerbate worries.” WSJ 01/30

Where is the information that would justify this fear?

Where is the explanation that accounts for this remarkable mass uprising?

Where are the questions about the three decades of neglect by several U.S. administrations and the requests by presidents Bush and perhaps Obama to carry out “renditions” [torture] in behalf of the United States.

When you support a tyrant who oppresses his/her people, you risk the antipathy of the people when they gain control.

Apparently, our ruling class hasn’t paid any attention to recent history. For years, successive US regimes supported dictatorial rule in South America. The dictators are gone, left leaning governments are in place, and no one is lining up to punish the United States.

The real concern about change in Egypt is all about control. The elite of the US and Europe may encounter a leader who isn’t in their pocket, doesn’t care whether or not he or she is invited to Davos, and actually seeks the benefit of the vast majority of citizens rather than the crony capitalist network also known as the global economy.

Michael Collins is a writer in the DC area who researches and comments on the corruptions of the new millennium. His articles focus on the financial manipulations of The Money Party, the abuse of power by government, and features on elections and election fraud. His articles can be found here. His website is called The Money Party.

Copyright © 1998-2007 Online Journal

February 2, 2011 Posted by | Deception, Economics, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

Burning Truth

By Linh Dinh – 1/31/11

Vietnam rarely makes the news these days, but there was a recent item about a journalist who died after being doused in his sleep with a chemical, then set on fire. The BBC implied that he may have been retaliated against for reporting on official misconduct.

Investigating corruption and abuse of power, Hoang Hung made plenty of enemies in high places. His best known article is about how officials in Long An, after receiving bribes from developers, kicked hundreds of farmers off their lands to make way for golf courses. After his death, a colleague quoted Hoang Hung, “We’re soldiers on the media battlefield. We must dare to speak the truth, dare to fight for social justice in spite of harassment from many quarters.” Fifty years old at his death, Hoang Hung was too young to participate in the Vietnam War. His father, however, was a Vietcong who died in battle.

The Vietnamese Communists won the war so they could eventually open the country to Capitalist sweat shops and golf courses. No wonder Hoang Hung was pissed. To make room for a rich man’s game, hundreds of Vietnamese became landless. Though Vietnam is smaller than California, it has more than twice the population. The deltas and coastline are packed with people. There, even a lawn is an alien concept, and as popular as soccer is, there are few grass fields. Vietnamese grow rice and vegetables, not grass. The last thing Vietnam needs is golf courses, but of course they aren’t built for the locals.

According to George Carlin, America doesn’t need these vast, high maintenance fields either. From a 1992 skit, “It is time to reclaim the golf courses from the wealthy and turn them over to the homeless […] Think of how big a golf course is. The ball is that fucking big! What do these pinheaded pricks need with all that land? There are over 17,000 golf courses in America. They average over 150 acres apiece. That’s 3 million plus acres, 4,820 square miles. You could build two Rhode Islands and a Delaware for the homeless on the land currently being wasted on this meaningless, mindless, arrogant, elitist, racist […] and a boring game.”

In any case, whoever killed Hoang Hung was a pro. The assassin knew that he tended to work late and often slept in his second floor home office. Waiting until the lights were out, the killer managed to climb onto the balcony without being detected just after midnight. He then entered the darkened room where his target was sound asleep inside the mosquito netting. After the attack, there were photos published in the Vietnamese press of the scorched bed and the near-naked victim lying in the hospital, where he suffered for ten days before dying. Make no mistake about this: Hoang Hung was killed as a warning to other journalists. Make too much noise and you will be roasted alive like this man.

In the 60’s, South Vietnamese monks immolated themselves to protest against the government. Their action was effective because it was a horrendous spectacle. It was visual. At the same time, South Vietnam’s best novelist, Nhat Linh, also committed suicide in protest, but he did it by ingesting poison in private. Whereas the image of a burning monk has become iconic, Nhat Linh’s death caused no international ripple whatsoever. It wasn’t visual. There is nothing to show.

Everywhere now, not least America, writers are becoming more invisible by the day, in any case. With so much mass media all the time, it would not matter if an American writer became a living torch in Times Square. They’d just hose his ashes into the gutter and point the camera at the naked cowboy. The Vietnamese Communists have also figured out that serious writers are mostly irrelevant in this cultural climate. They used to lock up poets—one, Nguyen Chi Thien, was imprisoned for a total of twenty-seven years—but now they pretty much leave poets alone. Though many are still blocked from publishing, poets are no longer jailed. To imprison a poet is to shine a spotlight on him. No one pays attention to poets anyway, no matter what they write. From the perspective of tyranny, it would be foolish to flesh out this nothingness.

Journalists, however, are a different story. They can still reach the masses. America has solved this problem by consolidating her media outlets. With countless newspapers and TV stations, there seems to be many voices speaking, but nearly all are manipulated by the same puppet master. As everyone sits in the dark, the spotlight is fixed on a tiny ring where there’s much flailing over next to nothing. Should anyone still manage to get out of line, however, America can always snuff him out, just like the Vietnamese did. Invading Iraq, we bombed the office of Al Jazeera and shelled the Palestine Hotel, killing three journalists. We also arrested Al Jazeerra’s al Sami al-Hajj and kept him in Guantanamo for six years without charge. In 2005, an American tank shot at a car carrying Italian journalist, Giuliana Sgrena, injuring her and killing intel agent, Nicola Calipari.

On the American fringe, independent voices are free to write as they please, but even the best among them can only appear in little read webzines. Many write almost exclusively on their own blogs. Needless to say, they have almost no impact on the general public. In too late late capitalism, those who seek to tell the truth don’t need to be burnt. They are already being drown out by nonsense.

January 31, 2011 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Leave a comment

Times’ Kershner uses biased Turkel history to report on biased Turkel report

By David Samel | Mondoweiss | January 24, 2011

There have been many critical examinations of New York Times articles on this website, and I’ve had my share of such posts to the point where it has gotten tiresome. But there is literally an endless supply of material. A particularly irksome error appears in today’s paper, in an article by Isabel Kershner on the shocking (!) finding of the Turkel Commission that Israel acted legally in killing nine passengers on the Mavi Marmara. While the Times article is worthy of more in-depth analysis, there is one whopper that stands out above all others:

Israel imposed its maritime blockade on Gaza in January 2009 during its military offensive against Hamas, the Islamic militant group that controls Gaza. The commission justified the blockade on security grounds, citing a need ‘to prevent weapons, terrorists and money from entering the Gaza Strip, and the need to prevent the departure of terrorists.’

Note how the first sentence is presented as objective fact, that the blockade was imposed in January 2009 during Israel’s attack, thereby supporting the Commission’s claim in the second sentence that the purposes of the blockade were solely military. Anyone paying minimal attention to the Gaza siege knows full well that Israel had been punishing the entire civilian population by severely curtailing the availability of basic goods since at least 2006, including by land or sea. Prior to 2009, there had been several attempts to bring in such civilian goods by sea, with mixed success; some ships were allowed to pass and others were stopped, or even rammed by the Israeli Navy, like the Dignity in late December, 2008.. Where did Kershner get her starting date for the naval blockade? From the Turkel Commission Report itself, which stated in par. 5 of its Summary:

After the Hamas terrorist organization seized control of the Gaza Strip in June 2007, the Government adopted various measures. On January 3, 2009, during Operation ‘Cast Lead,’ Israel imposed a naval blockade on the coastline of the Gaza Strip. . . the Government of Israel imposed the naval blockade on the Gaza Strip for military-security reasons, which mainly concerned the need to prevent weapons, terrorists, and money from entering the Gaza Strip, and the need to prevent the departure of terrorists and additional threats from the Gaza Strip by sea. The naval blockade was not imposed in order to restrict the transfer of humanitarian supplies to the Gaza Strip or to disrupt the commercial relations of the Gaza Strip. . . .

The naval blockade was imposed on January 3, 2009? What was it called before that date? What transformed an existing “blockade” of land and sea into some other type of “naval blockade” or vice versa? How could Kershner buy the nonsense that the naval blockade was implemented as late as January, 2009, with the goal of keeping weapons out of Gaza? This is not a trivial mistake, but a truly profound one. Israel’s long-standing policy of deliberately restricting a civilian population’s access to food, water, medicines, fuel, books and toys is generally viewed by all but the most cold-hearted as sadistic and cruel, not to mention illegal. There is a vast difference in public perception between keeping out arms and keeping out such basic necessities. In the wake of the Mavi Marmara murders, there was a thoroughly dishonest but reasonably successful campaign to re-cast the blockade as one that was designed to keep out military supplies only. It’s no surprise that the Turkel Commission continued in this effort, but how could Kershner forget what had been a continuing news story for three years before Cast Lead? Of course, if Kershner’s amnesia could have been cured had she glanced at the Ha’aretz article on the Turkel Commission, which accurately records: “The Turkel Commission also determined that Israel’s three-and-a-half year blockade of the Gaza Strip does not break international law.”

This is the way lies become history. This is why so many believe that there were thousands of rockets launched from Lebanon against Israel in 1982 and again in 2000-2006, prompting the two “wars”; that Arafat initiated the Second Intifada of terrorism to win with violence what he failed to win through negotiations; that Israel’s siege of Gaza was to keep out weapons. Every time these factoids are repeated in the newspaper of record and similar MSM outlets, they become more ingrained in the collective memory. Even if Kershner did not deliberately lie, she was inexcusably lazy and careless in simply repeating a critical misrepresentation by the Turkel Commission, rather than accurately reporting an undisputed fact.

January 25, 2011 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Leave a comment

British PM dines with Murdoch secretly

Press TV – January 25, 2011

The UK’s opposition Labour Party has challenged Prime Minister David Cameron over dinning secretly with James Murdoch, the son of the media tycoon Rupert.

The Prime Minister has held a secret dinner with James Murdoch amid the government’s attempt to decide on the Murdoch media empire after a flurry of resignations and dismissals over telephone hacking at Murdoch’s News of the World and his bid to buy BskyB, the daily Independent reported.

The Labor Opposition questioned whether Cameron had broken the ministerial code of conduct by meeting the chairman of News Corporation in Europe and Asia.

Cameron’s secret meeting with James comes only a few days after the premier stripped Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrat Business Secretary, of the power to decide whether News Corp should be allowed to buy the 61 percent of BSkyB it does not already own.

The government was also under an all-party pressure over its links with Rupert Murdoch despite last week’s resignation of Andy Coulson, the Downing Street director of communications, over the continuing controversy about telephone hacking at Murdoch’s News of the World, which cost Coulson his job as the paper’s editor in 2007.

Simon Hughes, the Liberal Democrats’ deputy leader, was expected to pursue legal action against News International over his phone being hacked rather than accept an out-of-court settlement.

He told the Commons last September that while he defended freedom of the press, “this [phone hacking] is abuse and illegality. It has to end, and we must be robust about it.”

The Independent revealed that Cameron met James Murdoch at the Oxfordshire home of Rebekah Brooks, the chief executive of News International. The private dinner she hosted took place shortly before Christmas.

January 25, 2011 Posted by | Corruption, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | Leave a comment

The Dishonesty of Jennifer Rubin (Con’t, ad nauseam)

Ali Gharib | Lobe Log | January 24th, 2011

Jennifer Rubin has spent much time advocating for escalating U.S. measures on Iran. At Commentary, she called a U.S. attack on the Islamic Republic the “best of the disagreeable options.” Now, at the Washington Post, Rubin seems to have softened this view, calling for “more fruitful actions.”

But Rubin’s reporting on Iran issues often reflects the same sort of sloppy disregard for facts we saw in the run-up to the Iraq War: Neoconservative pundits and journalists pass speculation off as fact, ignoring context and mitigating factors that might cast doubt on their pronouncements.

Take, for example, Rubin’s Dec. 27 story about “the unchecked Iranian menace.” She draws all kinds of conclusions from a post by Stephen Hayes at the Weekly Standard. (The link to Hayes’s piece in Rubin’s post takes one to the login page for the Post’s content management system.) Hayes’s post is itself based on an article from the Long War Journal, a project of the neoconservative think tank the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

The LWJ piece said that a Taliban member captured by ISAF (international forces in Afghanistan) was also a member of Iran’s elite Qods Force, a branch of the Islamic Republic’s Revolutionary Guards. But the article had been updated from the original version (before either Hayes or Rubin picked it up).

The older version (reprinted here), as the newer one acknowledges, said that the claim about the Qods Force came from ISAF. The updated version noted that ISAF has since retracted the claim (here is the ISAF press release), but that an unnamed “senior U.S. intelligence official” corroborated the earlier version of events.

The story that the Taliban fighter was a member of the Qods force may well be true. (On the Saudi-owned Al Arabiya television channel on Dec. 27, a London-based expert on Arab-Iranian relations said the fighter was indeed a Qods member.) But LWJ, to its credit, noted the ISAF retraction. Steven Hayes, writing at the Standard, did the same, albeit in a back-handed way:

Interestingly, ISAF officially confirmed the dual role of the captured operative, but later reversed itself. But Long War Journal’s Bill Roggio has a source that stands by the original claim.

Let’s hope we’re not muzzling the military now, too.

Then Jennifer Rubin picked up Hayes and… nada on the ISAF retraction.

Honest journalists feel the need to include critical context in their stories, even if that context can cast doubt on their report. While backed up by other sources, that’s exactly what this ISAF retraction did to the Taliban-Qods story — official Western military pronouncements tend to carry that kind of weight.

But Rubin, when it comes to Iran, seems incapable of honesty, let alone acknowledging facts that might cast doubt on her narrative of an ‘evil’ Iran. The fact that a writer at the ideological Weekly Standard felt the need to include the context that Rubin chose to leave out does not bode well for journalistic standards at the Washington Post.

January 25, 2011 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

Boycott vote in Sydney suburb sparks media furor, death threats

Sarah Irving, The Electronic Intifada, 24 January 2011

Anne Paq/ActiveStills

On 15 December 2010, the councilors of Marrickville, a suburb of Sydney, Australia voted by a 10-2 majority to support the Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS). A month later, they have belatedly become the subjects of vilification in the press owned by international media proprietor Rupert Murdoch and death threats from Australia’s lunatic fringe.

“What does the desert theocracy of Saudi Arabia have in common with Marrickville Council in Sydney’s Inner West?” howls an article in Murdoch’s Telegraph, under a headline comparing the local authority to North Korea. The piece — which manages to be factually inaccurate on subjects as diverse as kosher food laws and Palestine Liberation Organization factions — goes on to hail Israel as “one of the most innovative and entrepreneurial countries in the world. Its products and inventions find their way into computers, mobile phones and medicines.” The online version of the article seeks to demonstrate Israel’s virtues by illustrating it with both a photo gallery of Israeli swimsuit model Bar Refaeli and a video of her writhing in the sand on a photo shoot.

“This is what passes for ‘journalism’ and commentary over Israel/Palestine in Australia,” laments Antony Loewenstein, the Sydney-based author of Australian best-seller My Israel Question and co-founder of Independent Australian Jewish Voices. His blog also points out the inconsistencies and omissions in recent coverage of the incident by The Australian, supposedly a more serious paper than the Telegraph. The Australian quotes Anthony Albanese, a member of the Australian federal parliament whose constituency covers Marrickville council’s turf. Albanese claims that “Foreign policy is a fair way outside the parameters of the role of Marrickville Council” and suggests that the local authority stick to “local” issues.

But Councilor Cathy Peters, who supported the boycott motion at Marrickville, rejects the suggestion that boycotting Israeli products is outside her remit as a council representative. “It’s not a matter of foreign policy at all, but rather the right of a council to make decisions regarding our purchasing policy and the relationships and engagements we have with outside organizations,” she said in an interview with The Electronic Intifada. “It’s completely within our purview to make those decisions. We’ve done it before. We have an ongoing boycott of companies involved in Burma. The council has a long, proud tradition of making ethical decisions.”

Peters also stressed that many Marrickville residents had expressed their concerns about Israeli actions towards the Palestinians to local councilors. Marrickville mayor Fiona Byrne, writing on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation website, also described how “Marrickville Councilors interact with the people we represent on a day to day level. We have spoken with many local residents, with community and multi-faith groups who have told us of their feelings towards the unresolved issue of Palestine and Israel and their desire to be able to take direct action.” The boycott motion has also, she said, been supported by members of Jews Against the Occupation, and she cited the many Australian church and trade union organizations which have supported whole or partial boycotts of Israeli products and organizations.

Anthony Albanese has in the past been supportive of Palestine solidarity campaigns and critical of Israel’s human rights record, so his stance has surprised some local people. Jennifer Killen, a Marrickville resident who strongly supports the council’s twinning with Bethlehem and its boycott initiative, commented to The Electronic Intifada: “I’m very disappointed in my local member of parliament for not being more supportive of our hard-working local councilors at this time.” Killen also pointed out that the contact details of the councilors who voted for the boycott motion are on the website of the Sydney-based Coalition for Justice & Peace in Palestine, and called on international activists to support Marrickville where its MPs had failed to do so.

Councilor Cathy Peters, a Green Party member, emphasized that the boycott motion at Marrickville had cross-party support and that the former mayor of Marrickville, who visited its sister city of Bethlehem in 2010, was a member of the Australian Labor Party. But Antony Loewenstein and other Sydney commentators have suggested that the realpolitik of upcoming elections could be behind Albanese’s condemnation of the boycott vote. The Australian’s article mentions the risks to Albanese’s seat from the Green Party.

But it failed to highlight the fact that Carmel Tebbutt, the New South Wales state legislature member for Marrickville who is quoted in the same article, is also Albanese’s wife — and that her seat is under threat from Marrickville Green Mayor Fiona Byrne in upcoming state-level elections. The New South Wales Green Party adopted a strong boycott, divestment and sanctions position in December 2010 and Albanese’s attacks on the boycott motion could, Sydney commentators suggest, be an attempt to put some political space between himself and his spouse, and their Green challengers.

Outside the mainstream media, Australia’s nastier extremists have also waded in on the Marrickville debate. An article on the Australian Islamist Monitor website entitled “Australian Council Disgraces Itself” berates the local authority, saying that “you have got it all wrong — you have sided with the aggressors, the bullies, the friends of Hitler and those whom Hitler considered his friends in their antisemitism [sic].” The writer goes on to claim that “Israel is a tiny land surrounded by aggressive Muslim nations and as David Horowitz has pointed out repeatedly, the aim of those nations is to deny Israel the right to exist.” David Horowitz, cited by the Australian Islamist Monitor author, is an American commentator and founder of the Freedom Center who claims that “free societies” are “under attack by leftist and Islamist enemies at home and abroad.” As well as attacking Arab and left-wing campaigners, he has also been accused of racism against African Americans.

And one comment following the article reads: “This is insane I hate these people. I would like to have a 22 and pick them off one by one for target practice. Better still a suicide bomber in their midst. In fact I might make a giant blow up of the photo and sell it to a shooting range.” A “smiley” emoticon follows the comment. Immediately after it, the same commenter, “Skipping Girl,” adds: “God Bless Israel.”

Despite its claims to be “anti-racist in all its forms” and to support freedom of speech when this does not lead to violence, the Australian Islamist Monitor site is rife with hysterical and sometimes violent comments about Muslim people. A number of its contributors have links to more extreme hate sites and have made openly racist comments in other forums. The website’s membership is strictly controlled, with potential members approved by a human moderator as well as by electronic tests. However, in more than three weeks it has made no move to remove Skipping Girl’s bloodthirsty comments.

Cathy Peters says that she has been made aware that some threatening comments have been made regarding Marrickville councilors, but that the matter has been turned over to the council’s general manager for consideration. For her, the larger concern is how the issue of Palestine is debated in Australia.

“I think it’s unfortunate that these kind of emotional comments have been triggered by an overall reluctance by the Board of Deputies and other groups to tolerate debate and criticism of Israeli policies regarding Palestine and the occupied territories,” she says, rejecting charges that Marrickville’s councilors have been influenced by “political correctness” or ideology. Her fellow members, she points out, include some “very experienced” local councilors with diverse backgrounds and political opinions.

“The problem at the moment is one of groups trying to close down dialogue on the subject,” Peters insists. “What is really needed at the moment is a mature, calm debate on Israel’s policies on Palestine and how Australians should respond to them.”

Sarah Irving is a freelance writer. She worked with the International Solidarity Movement in the occupied West Bank in 2001-02 and with Olive Co-op, promoting fair trade Palestinian products and solidarity visits, in 2004-06. She now writes full-time on a range of issues, including Palestine. Her first book, Gaza: Beneath the Bombs, co-authored with Sharyn Lock, was published in January 2010. She is currently working on a new edition of the Bradt Guide to Palestine and a biography of Leila Khaled.

January 24, 2011 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Solidarity and Activism | Leave a comment

MSM self-censorship on the Israel issue

By Philip Weiss on January 20, 2011

Tonight Chris Matthews used the retirement of Joe Lieberman as an opportunity to bash the “neocons” for the Iraq war. Matthews landed on Lieberman’s disgraceful answer to Pat Buchanan’s question on Morning Joe today, saying the Iraq war was worth it because of WMD and Al Qaeda and Saddam’s threat to the region. Matthews said this was all BS. He said that Saddam posed no threat apart from his support for “Hamas.”

Obviously Matthews thinks that Lieberman was thinking about Israel’s security, not the U.S.’s security. But you still can’t say this in the MSM. You can bash the NRA over the Tucson shootings, but you can’t talk about the role of the Israel lobby in our foreign policy. You can just think about it. Like Chris Matthews.

On this note, orthodoxy and self-censorship, I’d point out that Michelle Goldberg, who interviewed me for Tablet this week (the piece is here, I hear it’s mixed, still haven’t read it, I’m weird that way) asked me if I’d been worried for my career when I started being as critical of Israel as I am. I said Yes, and it had hurt my career. Goldberg made the same point a couple years back at the 92d Street Y: “Everybody knows that if you write certain things [about Israel] you put yourself beyond the pale of certain publications. And not just the obvious ones like the New Republic. I mean you take a certain stance and you consign yourself to the loony left. I think that is maybe becoming less and less true.” Goldberg said she has been told on some occasions, “You can’t write something,” and there “is a degree of self-censorship as well.”

The other day a friend told me of his conversation with a financial journalist in the MSM who had expressed sympathy for the Palestinians. He asked her why she didn’t write about it. She said, a, I figure I’m not going to be able to help them so they’re not losing anything by my silence, and b, even though I write financial journalism, if I take a strong stand on this issue, I might be blacklisted or brown-listed by publications for any work at all… (Consigned to looniness, to quote Goldberg.)

When Walt and Mearsheimer’s book came out, they said the same thing. Many journalists came up to them privately to express agreement, but said that it was career-cyanide to speak out about it.

January 22, 2011 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | Leave a comment

Reuters’ Twisted Journalism

By Les Blough – Axis of Logic – January 20th 2011

In a recent Reuters report, the corporate media (CNBC/Reuters) overstepped itself – again – taking every conceivable opportunity to attack President Chávez in what should have been a simple, straight-forward news bulletin. They begin by raising questions about his character, then continue an attempt to undermine his statement about Venezuela’s oil reserves:

“…the former soldier said in a speech in which he denied he is a dictator, complained he was being unfairly demonized.”

What has this description of the president to do with the report on oil reserves? In a similar report about Saudi Arabian oil would they refer to the unelected King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz as one who denies he is a dictator? (On the other hand, how could the Abdullah deny the obvious!)

“There are suggestions that countries, including Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, have exaggerated their oil reserves in the past.”

“There are suggestions” – by whom? CNBC and Reuters or their “experts?” Can Reuters provide us with a credible example?

“Others say the lack of independent verification gave rise to doubts.”

“others say” – who are they and who is doing the doubting?

“A year ago, the U.S. Geological Survey reported that the Orinoco belt held some 513 billion barrels of crude that could be recovered — if costs were not an issue.”

If the U.S. Geological Survey does not qualify as “independent verification” in the eyes of Reuters, who does?

“Some experts say … that even with global prices currently climbing to close to $100 a barrel, exploiting most of it would be prohibitively expensive.”

Here again, “Some [unidentified] experts”, suggest that extraction of Venezuelan oil would be “prohibitively expensive”. Crude oil in the Orinoco River Belt is currently being extracted and the price today is $91.02. Are PDVSA and partner oil companies extracting it? Yes. Are they making a profit? Yes. Where’s the problem?

“Some experts say the area’s geology means it is uncertain how much oil could actually be extracted …”

And again, Reuters cites “some experts” who are “uncertain” how much of Venezuelan can be extracted “because of the area’s geology” – even though it’s being extracted now and has been so for many years. “The area’s geology?” without any explanation? It’s just another example of throwing shit at the wall of readers’ minds to see how much of it sticks.

“There are also doubts about when touted Orinoco projects will come online because of mismanagement in the state oil company PDVSA, ”

“… because of mismanagement in the state oil company PDVSA”

– this statement is a gratuitous, unfounded accusation; neither, Reuters nor CNBC can provide a single credible source for this outrageous claim. It works like this: 1. The Venezuelan private media makes these claims, based only on hearsay (i.e. gossip). 2. The Western Media, like Washington Post, New York Times, BBC, etc., repeat the hearsay and repeated often enough, it becomes “fact.” In this case, Reuters/CNBC didn’t even bother to cite “some experts” or “some reports”; rather, they directly stated that PDVSA is mismanaged.

There [is] uncertainty about investing in Venezuela, where Chávez has nationalized most of the oil industry.

Of course some corporations are uncertain about investing in Venezuela where the interests of the people are put ahead of the corporations and where in this case, the transnational oil companies can no longer strip Venezuela’s petroleum and walk, paying 0 to 1% royalties as they had done for decades before the people elected Hugo Chávez Frias as president for the first time in 1998.

Actually, Venezuela was nationalizing its oil industry in the early 70’s – when Hugo Chávez was still a teenager. Nationalization was complete and PDVSA was born when he was 22 years old. So Chávez did not nationalize Venezuela’s oil industry as Reuters states. He did however, put teeth into the then existing nationalization, requiring foreign oil companies to pay for what they had previously paid little to nothing – and forced them to give up controlling interest to the government, i.e. the people. Reported in Wikipedia:

“So for all practical purposes, Venezuela was already well on its way to nationalization by 1972. It did not become official however until the presidency of Carlos Andrés Pérez, whose economic plan, ‘La Gran Venezuela’, called for the nationalization of the oil industry and diversification of the economy via import substitution. The country officially nationalized its oil industry on 1 January 1976, and along with it came the birth of Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. (PDVSA) which is the Venezuelan state-owned petroleum company. All foreign oil companies that once did business in Venezuela were replaced by Venezuelan companies. PDVSA controls activity involving oil and natural gas in Venezuela. In 1980, PDVSA bought the US company Citgo and is the third-largest oil company in the world.”

– History of the Venezuela
Oil Industry, Wikipedia

Finally, look at the numbers reported by Reuters in the self-same article:

“OPEC said that Saudi Arabia’s reserves stood at 265 billion barrels in 2009.” – and …

“A year ago, the U.S. Geological Survey reported that the Orinoco belt held some 513 billion barrels of crude that could be recovered.”

So what is Reuter’s problem with the claim made by President Chávez?

This is not journalism. This is poorly written fiction. A first year student in a creative writing class could do better!

January 20, 2011 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering | Leave a comment

Hollywood, Israel and the Pursuit of Normalcy

By Basil Abdelkarim | Palestine Chronicle | January 17, 2011

While flipping through channels on television last week, I ran across an episode of Friends, the long running hit NBC sitcom (1994-2004), which grabbed my attention. In this episode from 2004, paleontologist and professor Ross Geller proudly announces to his circle of attractive young friends that he has just earned tenure at a New York university. This glorious occasion prompts the young dinosaur expert to break out a bottle of Israeli champagne in celebration. There are actually two references to Israeli champagne (‘Israel’s finest’) in this episode, and these moments are played ostensibly for laughs. (Israel? Champagne? Whoda thunk it?)

Nevertheless, Friends made me wonder. In recent years, I’ve noticed a trend among popular television programs and motion pictures to include bizarre, seemingly random references to Israel. The references are on the surface apolitical – they do not precede a discussion of the conflicts in the Middle East, nor do they offer an overt opinion on the Palestine/Israel crisis. They’re usually brief (perhaps a single exchange), and they add nothing to the underlying story. They stand alone, frequently as the punch line to a joke. But does anyone believe that the television and motion picture industries want us to laugh at Israel? Is that really all that’s going on here?

References to Israel in Hollywood, like references to Palestine or the Arab world, always demand close scrutiny, particularly given the entertainment industry’s shameful penchant for Arab/Muslim vilification and glorification of all things Israel, to say nothing of the fervent public devotion towards Israel shared by countless Hollywood luminaries. What this means is that in Hollywood, there’s really no such a thing as an “innocent” television or movie reference to Israel, no matter how tiny or inconsequential, for Israel is not like other nations. Even a fleeting mention of Israeli champagne, or a humorous reference to the Mossad (another television favorite), warrants further analysis.

So when a character on the hit ABC sitcom According to Jim (2001-2009) reminds Jim that he once planted a tree in Israel in his honor (neither of these characters are Jewish or particularly religious, by the way), there’s nothing innocuous about this fictitious gifting of a tree. Certainly not in an era when Israeli bulldozers routinely uproot ancient Palestinian olive groves and successive Israeli governments devote their collective energies to obliterating centuries of Arab history in the Holy Land.

Which brings us to this central question: what is the point of all of these (on the surface) non-political references to Israel on television and the big screen, in stories which have nothing to do with Israel or Israelis? Are they part of a wide-ranging propaganda campaign? Do they serve a different agenda from that of the more familiar, pervasive Hollywood depictions of Heroic Israel/Israelis or Victim Israel? Or are these merely two sides to the same coin?

To understand one possible explanation for this trend, it bears mentioning that we’re dealing with a more nuanced narrative than the traditional depiction of gallant little Israel. For the “Old” Israel, just think of the 1960 movie Exodus – attractive, noble proto-Israelis triumph against all odds while battling British colonial overlords and Arab primitives. The original, cartoonish version of Israel always implied conflict, for it centers upon the myth of Israel under siege. This is Jewish David confronting the menace of the Arab/Muslim Goliath. Let’s call this the “Neocon” Israel for reasons that will be made apparent shortly. And while still ubiquitous in far-Right circles, (mostly among neoconservatives and the crowd itching for the Apocalypse), this version of Israel has taken a severe pummeling in recent years. A succession of bloody incursions (Gaza, Lebanon), the inhumane siege of Gaza, the escalation of illegal settlements on occupied land, construction of the apartheid wall, and most recently, the brutal suppression of the Gaza aid flotilla – all have chipped away at this myth of Israel as the besieged yet noble “Light unto the nations”.

No, what we’re dealing with in Friends and According to Jim is a softer vision of Israel, but more importantly, an Israel that is neither defined by nor judged on the basis of its treatment of its Palestinian subjects. This is the non-controversial version of Israel, or “Non-Con” Israel, an Israel which exports bad champagne, co-opts environmentalist sentiment (planting trees), and offers up hot young female ex-soldiers as mysterious sex symbols (as in the recent Steve Carell/ Tina Fey comedy Date Night). As for Palestine and the Palestinians – well, they’re not even an afterthought.

I’ve always believed that what apologists for Israeli misdeeds crave the most (after vindication, of course) is normalcy. Normalcy in this context is not a comprehensive peace agreement that restores the basic human rights of native Palestinians while guaranteeing the security of all the peoples of the region. Normalcy, rather, is that elusive state of affairs where all the turmoil and embarrassing headlines (and by extension, the Palestinians themselves) have simply evaporated, magically cleansed from our collective consciousness. Normalcy means an uncontroversial, run-of- the-mill Israel disconnected from Palestinians with a reputation as benign as, say, that of Norway.

Ideally, the Israel PR movement wants us to think of Israel as we might think of Italy or Greece – an ancient land steeped in history and overflowing with a wealth of natural beauty, archeological treasures, and contemporary luxuries alike, a modern marvel whose charming population stands ready to greet visitors with a smile. “Come to Israel, come stay with friends,” declared the comical old Israeli tourism campaign from some years back. Just don’t bring any Arab friends. But if you enjoy sunbathing in the south of France, why not catch some rays on the beaches of Tel Aviv? And why not drink some Israeli bubbly?

Yes, this is a softer, less confrontational Israel, yet this version remains a myth, for it requires a suspension of disbelief. This Non-Con version of Israel is more insidious and in its own way even more damaging than the Neocon Israel, for it ignores Palestinians altogether. Decades of conflict, the deliberate dispossession of an entire people, the ongoing, brutal occupation and siege, institutionalized racism within Israel itself – all are swept under the rug in favor of a sanitized vision of normalcy that lacks any context whatsoever.

Fortunately, not everyone has bought into this charade. No, Israel is not Norway, nor are Israel’s policies normal. That’s why the Israel divestment campaign and the international movement advocating a cultural and academic boycott of Israel continue to gather steam. It’s the same reason that diverse artists, from Carlos Santana to Elvis Costello, have cancelled Israeli concert appearances in recent years. Here in America, people from all walks of life (including courageous young American Jews) are slowly waking up to the realization that an Israel that practices apartheid policies cannot be like other nations.

If one cares about the world, wishing for normalcy should never serve as a substitute for working for justice or promoting basic human dignity. Here’s hoping that future television and motion picture writers remember this lesson. In the meantime, I’d suggest planting a tree in Palestine as a gift to a friend.

As for Israeli champagne, I don’t drink, but for those who do, my advice is simple:

Just say no.

January 18, 2011 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Solidarity and Activism | Leave a comment

PALESTINIANS: LIVING UNDER THE OCCUPATION AND LOVING IT

Steve Amsel | Desert Peace | January 13, 2011

And what’s not to love? They are separated from their families and loved ones by a concrete wall making visits difficult, or impossible. Access to mosques is forbidden during Holy Days. Their children are accosted daily by Israeli soldiers on their way to and from school …. often imprisoned or murdered just for the fun of it.

And the great outdoors….. where else but in Occupied Jerusalem can a family be evicted from its home to make room for illegal Jewish settlers…. sanctioned by a court order?

Just think of the money these Palestinians can save by not having to bring gifts to loved ones they cannot visit … or contributions to their mosques that they are forbidden to go to … or having to feed an imprisoned or murdered child … or the city taxes they no longer have to pay as living in a tent is tax free.

Just think about those things so you won’t be surprised at the results of a Poll just held in Occupied East Jerusalem. I’m sure ever Jew living there was questioned as the results are definitely not a reflection of what any Palestinian is thinking.

Reading the Israeli press lately has become like reading America’s satirical newspaper ‘The Onion’…. it’s just not real. Case in point is the following;

Poll: Jerusalem Arabs prefer Israel

US poll: 39% of east Jerusalem Arabs prefer to live under Israeli sovereignty; 30% didn’t answer

YNET | January 13, 2011

WASHINGTON – The future of Jerusalem is considered one of the core issues in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations and one of the most significant obstacles to a permanent agreement between the two sides. However, it appears that on the Palestinian side, those who live in Jerusalem have already made their decision on the matter – and the Palestinian Authority leadership in Ramallah may not like it. …

January 13, 2011 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering | Leave a comment

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