Obama in Jerusalem

On the occasion of Senator Barack Obama's recent world travels (which brought him to Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel and the Occupied West Bank, and Germany, and will soon see him in Britain and France), we point you to an editorial written for the Guardian by the Electronic Intifada's Ali Abunimah. Pressure from the Israel lobby (in the form, as always, of Alan Fucking Dershowitz) has caused Obama to distance himself even from someone as "establishment" as Zbigniew Brzezinski--do we detect the long arm of a rejuvenated (and sadly ignored) Jimmy Carter and his calls for a "new role" in the world for America? On his visit to Israel--which included the better part of one hour spent with Mahmoud Abbas in occupied Ramallah--Obama sought to reassure Ehud Olmert, Shimon Peres and the Israeli public that his commitment to the safety, security, and right to "self-defense" (that old reality-twisting litany) of the State of Israel ought not to be doubted. The obligatory references to the dangers of a nuclear Iran (despite a recent "slap in the face" of Israel delivered by America) were also made. Nothing, as Abunimah points out, about a freeze on settlements, dialogue with Hamas, or negotiation of the refugee problem.

In a separate editorial, the Guardian points out that while Obama's visit may have done some good for his shaky reputation as "friend of Israel," it did nothing nothing for peace in Israel/Palestine. And, as the New York Times reports, not many people in the Arab World expect this to change.

Late add: Nicholas Kristof offers this uncharacteristically lucid, accurate, and politically practical editorial in today's New York Times, saying that what Israel needs from Obama is "tough love."

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al-Ahram's Khaled Amayreh reports on the impending reconciliation talks between Hamas and Fatah, preparations for which have seen the previously-unlikely release of a number of Hamas supporters from Palestinian jails or the custody of Mahmoud Abbas's Palestinian Authority. Most significant in this attempted rapprochement is the likelihood that any joint statement of agreement issued by the two factions will be based on the so-called Prisoners' Statement of 2006, which originally called for a release of all Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails and Israel's full retreat from lands occupied in 1967.

Ilan Pappe, now at Exeter, offers to the Inter-Press service some general thoughts on the current state of Israeli-Palestinian affairs, the 2008 election in the US, and the prospective role of Islam in the daily lives of Palestinians.

Patrick Cockburn fills in some details of a new Iraqi-American security agreement. George Bush wants it signed by 31 July; Moqtada al-Sadr sees in it a ploy to put "an American in every house."

As reported earlier this week, John McCain and Barack Obama find themselves both supporting the FISA amendment, which would not only legalize the Bush administrations warrantless wiretaps but would obscure entirely the breadth and scope of the program since it was instituted after 11 September. This constitutes a stark reversal of position for both men. Michael Ratner, the president of the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York, speaks to The Real News's Zaa Nkweta.

'The presumptive Democratic candidate for President, Barack Obama'

More than the disingenuousness of his previous foreign policy statements, Barack Obama's speech at this year's AIPAC conference the day after securing the Democratic nomination for President highlights the inevitable rightward shift that his campaign, at least in tone, will continue to make as November approaches. Below, in two parts, Aijaz Ahmad unpacks Obama's statements to the Israel lobby.

No one ought to be surprised by Obama's unequivocal stance; as even Jon Stewart points out, "you can't say anything remotely critical of Israel and still be elected president." Of particular interest for us is the reaction of the Palestinian leadership to Obama's speech, notably that of Fatah negotiator Saeb Erekat. Erekat has the audacity to say that Obama's speech was "the worst thing to happen to Palestinians" since the Six Day War, thus completely obscuring his own Fatah party's comprador role in the years since Oslo, not to the deepening political and humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
Moreoever, as Aijaz notes, Gaza is likely to be conveniently forgotten when the borders of the putative "cohesive and contiguous" Palestinian state are drawn.

In the second video below, Aijaz further analyzes Obama's language at the AIPAC conference, which includes the suggestion that Iran, not Iraq, would have been the 'right war,' and a call for greater unilateral action, 'outside of the United Nations,' on the part of the United States. As Aijaz tells us, 'with liberalism like this, no one needs the neo-cons.' Videos are below.

AS the transformation of Barack Obama nears its completion, Uri Avnery finds that last week's AIPAC spectacle confirms in full even the most "extreme" conclusions drawn by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt in their seminal The Israel Lobby, published late last year--a book that Obama had already denounced for its critique of the increasingly "special" relationship between the State of Israel and the US.
Part I


Part II

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In the first two (ONE TWO)of a three-part editorial installment on the historical trajectory of the project of Palestinian national liberation, Azmi Bishara cites a 'contrived complexity' that has been built up around the Palestinian cause that not only decisively limits public discourse on the topic but serves Israeli interests perfectly. Lamenting the fact that the so-called Palestinian question has lost its pan-Arab quality, Bishara aims to take account of the historical forces that have allowed Israel to pursue what was as of late an unpredicted course; not that of the one- or two-state solution, but of Israel as 'crusader state'.

Paul Craig Roberts finds something ominous in Dick Cheney's recent schedule, as it suggests a strong possibility of an attack on Iran. The culprits responsible for enabling such an attack, says Roberts, would primarily be the American media, the electorate in the US, and the Democratic Party.

The death of Rachel Corrie, and the invasion of Iraq, five years on

A brief update from northern Paris.

Five years ago today, International Solidarity Movement activist Rachel Corrie was crushed under an Israeli/American Caterpillar bulldozer in Gaza. As Tom Wright and Therese Saliba report, Rachel Corrie's parents are in Israel this week to ttend the first Arabic-language production of My Name is Rachel Corrie, an immensely powerful one-woman play (we've mentioned it before) brought to New York last year thanks to the courage and tenacity of Alan Rickman and Katherine Viner. Cindy and Craig Corrie come against the backdrop of an utter lack of accountability regarding the circumstances of their daughter's murder; neither Caterpillar, Inc. nor the Israeli government/IDF seem to face any danger of prosecution, and they certainly haven't made any efforts to appear contrite.

RIP, Rachel.

Another (almost anniversary) sees the lead opinion piece in this weekend's Observer making the claim that

Whatever the tragic consequences of the Iraq war, we must learn from them, and when the circumstances are right, not flinch from using all the power at our disposal.

Earlier in the piece it is stated that no one could have foretold the catastrophe that eventually unfolded in Iraq, despite an overwhelming amount of journalistic evidence and political opinion to the contrary. The UK's 'liberal' newspapers continue to lose their way...

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Of note in Israel this week was a remark by Deputy Defence Minister Matan Vilnai, in which he threatened a 'shoah' in Gaza if Qassam rocket attacks do not cease; the word is rarely used other than to refer, of course, to the Holocaust. The situation in Gaza worsens, with nearly 40 Palestinians--including civilians, and, of those, nine were children--dead in the past few days. The physical attenuation of Gaza's population continues. Electronic Intifada's Ali Abunimah with reaction.

An interesting article from former Israeli journalist Yonatan Mendel on the coextensiveness between the Israeli press and the Zionist project. Mendel looks in particular at the curiosities and double-standards of language that are scattered throughout Israeli journalism.

America's Director of National Intelligence, Mike McConnell, noted Thursday that the security situation in Afghanistan is worsening, with President Karzai controlling not even a third of the country. Karzai, the Guardian notes, denies the American intelligence assessment (which itself echoes earlier, more critical reports by various think-tanks), claiming that his government in fact controls a vast majority of the country. Declan Walsh finds the explanations given by Nato commanders curious. Those commanders claim that the steady increase in suicide bombings is evidence that the Taliban is being "worn down." This claim--which hints at the fact that suicide bombing is an act marked significantly by desperation--is one never heard with regard to suicide bombings in Israel, which are discursively framed as proof of a larger looming (pan-) Arab threat. Walsh also credits the safe haven offered to Taliban fighters in Pakistan with playing a huge role in the Taliban's resurgence.

In his latest piece for Counterpunch, Patrick Cockburn discusses Turkey's bold-faced invasion of Northern Iraq (the only part of the country, he notes, that was at peace until last week), comparing Turkey in their hunt for PKK Turkish Kurd Gorillas to Israel in their repeated incursions into Gaza. He points out that this most recent development in Iraq weakens the state of the Kurdish Regional Government, which, according to Cockburn, was "one of the few concrete achievements of the US and British invasion of Iraq five years ago." Cockburn goes on to provide another useful counter-narrative to the relatively cheery reporting on the "surge" offered by the Times and its cohorts.

No Empires and New York Magazine

Fitting for the soft-liberal and thoroughly contradictory, uncritical politics of New York's youngish chattering inhabitants (who, tellingly, only seem to read the magazine's restaurant section, anyway), New York Magazine has printed a one-page hatchet job concerning NE hero Norman Finkelstein, who is currently trying to rebuild his career following a recent character assassination campaign (led, of course, by Alan Fucking Dershowitz), which cost him his job at Chicago's DePaul University. Ben Harris's 'article' about Finkelstein (which artfully manages to evade ANY FUCKING ENGAGEMENT WHATSOEVER with Finkelstein's work), is entitled 'Beached' (referring to Finkelstein's recent move to his deceased father's apartment in Coney Island), and sub-titled 'The Coney Island exile of a scholar who would be Noam Chomsky, but isn't.' Your guess is as good as ours as to what the fuck this phrase means. But let's move beyond pithy linguistic arguments; there's (barely) enough here that warrants a more polemic response.

Harris, at best a thoroughly shitty writer, does nothing to mask his contempt of what he blatantly considers to be the pathetic nature of Finkelstein's (personal, political, academic) life at present:

His days are now spent in solitary scholarly pursuits; his bookshelves buckle under the weight of tomes by Marx, Lenin, and Trotsky. Notes of support from his students sit on a piano; there’s a photo of him and Noam Chomsky (“my closest friend”) bare-chested on the beach at Cape Cod.

Apparently, for Harris, Finkelstein's students are woefully misguided, yet serve the purpose of consoling Finkelstein following the Dershowitz-orchestrated come-uppance he so obviously deserved. And Noam Chomsky? Harris takes Finkelstein for a deluded fool--if you two are so close, where's your buddy Noam now?

We're surprised we've taken up this much space dealing with Harris's diarrheal diatribe. Read it, or don't. Judging by his own journalistic standards, dealing with primary sources is probably not too high on Harris's to-do list.

Ben Harris: fuck you.

Fear and Loathing in Anne Arundel County

Today is the day (or at least the paltry reenactment) we've all been waiting for since September 1993 in the Rose Garden at the White House. The Annapolis "conference"--complete with its own PowerPoint-style background graphic--has been roundly ridiculed in recent weeks, with Olmert and Bush firmly rejecting any discussion of final status issues such as the status of Jerusalem or the right of return of Palestinian refugees (which would thereby invalidate the racist Zionist project), and Mahmoud Abbas seemingly more willing than ever to kowtow to American and Israeli diktats. We first here provide you with a powerful report from Gaza, courtesy of Laila El-Haddad and the Electronic Intifada.

"If it were easy [achieving the goal of establishing peace between Israel and Palestine], it would have happened a long time ago" said George Bush...and we'll leave it to our faithful readers to fill in the flagrant historical and ideological gaps in this statement.

For now, an article by NE favorites Kathleen and Bill Christison will do more than suffice.

News From Nowhere

Haaretz reports, to no one's surprise, that 'Israel and the PA have failed to reach a joint statement' prior to this coming week's conference in Annapolis, which likely will quickly join Madrid and Oslo in the group of cities that have hosted woefully misguided 'peace conferences' between Israel and the Palestinians, sponsored by the 'honest broker' that the US purports to be.

This among reports that envoys from Saudi Arabia will be present in Annapolis; this promise referred to a perceived 'Arab consensus' to support the talks, despite the fact that the Arab states have continually failed to rally behind the Palestinians for 40 years. Good news, though: Condoleezza Rice has been charged with the task of producing the summit's final statement, should the Israel and the Pa be unable to reach some sort of consensus. Thus spoke Ismail Haniyeh today:

"We realize that this conference was stillborn and is not going to achieve for the Palestinian people any of its goals or any of the political and legal rights due to them."

Unfortunately, we assume he'll be proven right.

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In a letter to the president of the Oxford Union, Israeli filmmaker Ronen Berelovich laments Oxford's decision to uninvite Norman Finkelstein from a panel discussion on the one-state solution in Israel/Palestine. This is a shameful display of academic intolerance that is more suited to the United States, where Finkelstein has already experienced enough undue ideological censure; accordingly, the three other academics who were slated to represent Finkelstein's side of the debate (the one-state, as opposed to two-state, side)--Ghada Karmi, Avi Shlaim and Ilan Pappe--have withdrawn from the debate. Karmi's recent article for Comment is Free details the circumstances surrounding their withdrawal, as well as what she sees as the importation of the notorious Israel lobby of American onto British soil.

And thanks to John for bringing this article from The Nation to our attention: an account of the political climate regarding Israel/Palestine at Columbia University that almost has us at No Empires wishing we were back home...

Legitimizing land grabs

Apparently, after two recent meetings with PM Ehud Olmert, Abu Mazen has perfected the duplicitious and prevaricating language of Israeli diplomacy. In what would initially seem the toughest language to come out of "official" Palestine since this summer's coup, Abbas claims to be after no less than all territory illegally annexed by Israel in June 1967, some 2,400 square miles, or 22% of historic Palestine. He notes, however (and this is where it gets tricky), that "[to] a border adjustment, on the basis of the same quality and the same amount, we have no objections." In other words, word from Ramallah to the rest of Occupied Palestine: let's be ready for a land swap! Abbas did not deem it fit to speak of the Separation Wall, the right of return, or any other final-status issue.

This comes on a day of wide reporting of Israel's intent to annex four Palestinian villages in the West Bank, for the purpose of expanding Israeli settlements. Israeli army says that the illegal confiscation will result in a "Palestinians-only" road from East Jerusalem to Jericho. Lovely. A road that will be largely unusable/inaccessible to the majority of Palestinians near it, all to connect the discontinuous Palestinian cantons found in the 23 miles from Jerusalem to Jericho.

'Pillars of society, pimping for torture'--Perry Anderson on the European Union

In a recent piece for the London Review of Books, Perry Anderson refutes the somewhat pathetic but surprisingly common (at least for Western neo-liberals, that is) notion that Europe will prove itself to be the world’s exemplar of freedom and stability for the twenty-first century (or, as it is alternately known in the minds of its champions, the "New European Century," a terminology frightening in its resemblance to its now-defunct American counterpart). Citing an unprecedented degree of 'political vanity' across the EU, Anderson seeks to clarify what ten years ago were 'three great imponderables': a single European currency, intended to bolster investment and productivity across (Western) Europe; Germany's reemergence, following reunification, as one of the two most powerful countries in Europe; and eastward expansion of the EU. The results, according to Anderson, are at best decidedly mixed, and certainly do not merit the talk of a European 'renaissance' that has been much publicized.

Tracking Europe's evolution over the last two decades, Anderson separates European myth--a Union of 'peace, prosperity, and democracy' (in the words of Mark Leonard)--from European reality--plain old free-market liberalism and privitisation of everything under the sun. The myth, which rests on a vague, always negative conception of Europe as “not America,” is betrayed, Anderson shows, by the EU’s betrayal of social democratic principles (not to mention Eastern Europe), as well as the Union’s increasingly slavish relationship to the US and its imperial misadventures in Iraq and Afghanistan--and possibly, in the coming months, Iran. Furthermore, the EU has yet to strike out a path independent of the United States regarding their mutual client state, Israel, and its ongoing illegal occupation of historic Palestine. Anderson points in particular to how the Union's expansion eastward has been predicated on an unwillingness to grant Eastern European countries any sort of autonomy from the British/French/German triumvirate--this Eastern inclusion, furthermore, must go through a vetting process headed up by the UN and the United States, who are in charge of deeming several countries either fit (Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic) or unfit (Turkey, thus far) for entry into the EU.

Anderson calls this an "asymmetrical symbiosis" between the EU and the US, which is ultimately in contradiction to any anticipated European hegemony in the 21st century. We don't wish to overburden our readers with a step-by-step analysis of Anderson's argument; we can only encourage you to take the time to read his supremely important article.

Mahmoud Ahmedinejad at Columbia

Much has already been made of Ahmedinejad's visit to Columbia, which passed yesterday. After cancelling his invitation by Lisa Anderson last year, it's been obvious that Lee Fucking Bollinger couldn't have kept his well-worn, if inconsistent--we're reminded of the row over Jim Gilchrist and his proto-fascist "Minutemen" last year--First Amendment cred by bailing on Ahmedinejad two years in a row. Sure enough, L.F.B. was quick to pat himself on the back for going out on such a limb in upholding Ahmedinejad's right to speak--though he also, of course, found time to mouth the Bush administration's line about Ahmedinejad being the leader of a "state sponsor of terror," how Iran's helping fight a "proxy war" against the US in Iraq, blah blah blah. For his performance, Bollinger even managed to win the approval of AIPAC.

We'd like to direct your attention to the Washington Post's Global Power Barometer, which summed up national and global reaction to Bollinger's "introduction" and Ahmedinejad's speech this way:

• Conservative and heartland America papers by and large praised the very tough introduction of Columbia University President Lee Bollinger and strongly criticized the performance of the Iranian President.
• Analysts with an understanding of the global stage were fairly uniform in their view that while President Bollinger played well to those who criticized his decision to invite President Ahmadinejad in the first place, his introduction played perfectly into the hands of the Iranina President and Iranian hard liners. The take of these analysts was that while a Tim Russert (NBC Meet the Press host) style inquisition could have taken the Iranian President apart, Dr. Bollinger's approach turned him into a sympathetic figure and violated just about every Middle East tradition, thereby enhancing President Ahmadinejad's stature in Iran and the region. Consensus: Thanks to Bollinger, Ahmadinejad won on the global stage.
• GPB take: While the GPB understands the pressure President Bollinger was under, his response was symptomatic of the ignorance even educated Americans have about playing to the myriad of cultures spanning the Middle East and the world. To date that extraordinary cultural ignorance has cost the US thousands of US lives, trillions of taxpayer dollars and the presitge of the US throughout the world. It is the primary reason the US is at the bottom of the GPB scale in terms of its ability to move the global agenda. Hopefully, at some time in the future, American politicians (and university presidents) will learn that being truly tough and winning on the global stage requires the discipline to realize you need to move those who are your adversaries not those who compose your base. The Iranians learned that a very long time ago, which is why they came out ahead today with the audiences that will determine US success or failure in the Middle East.

Let's be clear--we have very little sympathy for Ahmedinejad's abrasive, one-liner style, which only seems to increase in intensity the more he comes under fire in his own country; and Holocaust denial holds for us about the same water as those who claim, as Benny Morris bizarrely now does (but for many years did not), that Palestinians in 1948 left their homes and land entirely of their own will, or at the urging of neighboring Arab states, rather than under the threat of forced expulsion or death from Haganah forces.

It's enough to say that Iran's president is a provocateur without equal on the world stage, and that his wide popularity in the Arab and so-called "developing" world is a result of his unflinching willingness to decry question America's untrammeled power. That said, we are of the mind, with Juan Cole, that Ahmedinejad is a "bantam cock of a populist", whose real (and only) authority lies in the regional strength that Iran has been flaunting ever since the American misadventure in Iraq went awry, irrespective of what date one wishes to put on the beginning of the present nightmare. Iran is a real political force to be reckoned with in today's Middle-Far East, as much as Hezbollah and Hamas, independent of lazy and unfounded US claims of patronage between the former and the latter two. In fact, the US is directly responsible for this unprecedented shift in the balance of power. Yet Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas, are continually deemed unfit as partners in dialogue, let alone as important political actors.

All this being said, a balance sheet deserves being drawn, at least to flesh out our own feelings on Ahmedinejad. Let's ignore the crowds of (partly bussed-in) protesters crowding College Walk and the paths to Butler Library and Lerner Hall; pictures in the New York Times of some of them holding up the painfully predictable "Iran funds Hamas"placards--the same we've seen at "Salute to Israel" parades on Fifth Avenue--is enough to pass their presence off as demagoguery and plain political infantilism.

The rub is, when Ahmedinejad says rightly that "We need to still question whether the Palestinian people should be paying for" the Holocaust--referring to Israel's repeated, often implicit assertions that the crimes of Nazi Germany ought to justify its 40-year old illegal occupation and brutally violent denial of the right of Palestinian self-determination--he still fucks this up by saying that the undeniable fact of the Holocaust ought to be called into question. Looking to make a plainly historical point, Ahmedinejad lapses into asinine ideology.

He finds himself on solid ground once again that Iran cannot formally recognize the state of Israel "because [the Israeli state] is based on ethnic discrimination, occupation and usurpation and it consistently threatens its neighbors." Again, this helps account for his oft-wavering popularity at home and abroad. Ahmedinejad's on the money as well when he points out the brazen hypocrisy of Europe and America's desire to control or curtail Iran's nuclear programs.

Just as there is no excusing treating the Holocaust as "theory" rather than historical fact, there is no excusing his ludicrous assertion that "[Iran doesn't] have homosexuals like in your country"--though this doesn't at all give free license to gay and lesbian rights activists to join in the war-mongering chorus in Morningside Heights. (An aside: please see Joseph Massad's Desiring Arabs, referred to elsewhere on this site, for more on how the "Gay International" ends up universalizing repressive norms of what behavior is and is not "gay" in the name of its own normative ontology.)

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Late (or early?) edition UPDATE:

The sky gets darker the longer the Giuliani campaign increases its viability. Why this endlessly greedy, self-aggrandizing, par-for-the-course asshole would want to abandon his uber-cushy private sector job for the paltry paycheck of President is a bit unclear--though it's been obvious for some time that he's ready, finally, to leave old buddy Bernie Kerik (who has been, more recently, and in order: failed candidate for Homeland Security; head American cop in Iraq [for 4 months]; and potential tax-fraud indictee) by the wayside. It seems people, and their convictions/affiliations, really can change. Giuliani, who, as mayor, was a fierce gun control advocate--one rare point of agreement between us and him--is now doing his all to woo the N.R.A., even going so far as to say that 9/11 has put "a whole different emphasis on what America has to do to protect itself.” (Though it's arguable that one of Rudy's spokesmen went even further in his clarification of this remark; see the end of the article.)

Ahmed Yousef, political advisor to (unconstitutionally) sacked Palestinian PM Ismail Haniyeh, has written an editorial for Ha'aretz in which he puts forth a position which should be plainly obvious, yet given American coverage of the subject, is woefully anything but: that the political stalemate, at the "official" level in Israel/Palestine, as well as final status issues pertaining to the Israeli occupation, can only be solved with an inclusion of Hamas in multilateral dialogue. Yousef points out that the purportedly-total animosity between Hamas and Fatah, deployed to great effect in the Western press by Mahmoud Abbas and fellow coup-makers, is nowhere near as all-encompassing as it would seem. He concludes rightly that, far from being spokesmen for the radical Islamist avant-garde in the Arab world, Hamas is working to curtail extremist trends by offering a widely popular--among occupied Palestinians, if not the Arab world more broadly--and secular platform for peace between Israel and occupied/displaced Palestinians. Something tells us that the sound logic of Yousef's proposition will find scant audience in the circles of Bush, Olmert, and Abbas; in particular with Bush, as it flies in the face of the deeply deluded neocon logic he's done so much to propogate.

Speaking of which delusion...
In his latest piece for commentisfree, William Dalrymple argues (quite even-handedly, NE might add) for a strain of American/British foreign policy less resistant to political Islam, pointing out the neo-conservative response has done nothing but guarantee the rise of what they hysterically call "Islamofascism." Like many commentators before him, Dalrymple contrasts neo-con foreign policy (considered by frightening numbers of people in the countries NE call home a legitimate reaction to the threat of "Islamofascism" and the rise of "jihadism") with what anyone NE can respect would consider a self-fulfilling prophecy. As neo-cons consider the growing numbers of Muslim representatives in democratic governments proof of a problem in need of a solution, NE is reminded of pre-emptive warfare, a neo-con trope that is, apparently, no longer necessary.