Well-Made World 19

For the NLR, Alex Cockburn has expanded a piece from Le Monde Diplomatique--which we linked to several weeks back--on the state of the American anti-war movement. Cockburn writes on the recent history of anti-war and left groups in America, both popular and marginal, and details the ineptitude of the splintered coalitions opposing the Iraq war, finding much fault with the mainstream anti-war movement's "occasionally petulant subservience" to the Democratic party since 2003.

Also, tacked onto a piece for Counterpunch on Nuri al-Maliki is a reaction to Cockburn's criticism of the anti-war movement from the Institute for Policy Studies' Phyllis Bennis. Bennis takes issue in particular with the notion, proposed by Cockburn in his original piece, that it would behoove the left in the US to humanize Iraq's multifaceted resistance. Bennis complains that because the Iraqi resistance lacks a cohesive and demonstrable central authority (unlike the FMLN, or the African National Congress), it lacks accountability to the population of Iraq (who bear the brunt of the America's aggression, as well as of the resistance) and so does not deserve the support of anti-war sympathizers in America. It's puzzling, if not plain stupid, that Bennis could possibly expect an El Salvadorean-style resistance authority after six years of the Bush administration doing everything in its power to exploit deep-seated ethnic tension in Iraq. Bennis also makes the point that, because some actions taken by the resistance are morally reprehensible, no further attempt at humanizing the resistance are necessary, or even warranted. Cockburn then responds. Read on.

George Bush has recently likened the situation in Iraq, and the consequences of a troop withdrawal, to the fate suffered by millions of Vietnamese following the end of the war there. The New York Times claims that "Mr. Bush is challenging the historical memory that the pullout from Vietnam had few negative repercussions for the United States and its allies." Bush mentions the Khmer Rouge and the "killing fields" of Pol Pot, but neglects the fact--pesky historical memory! motherfucker!--that, had Richard Nixon heeded the antiwar movement, the war would've ended in 1969, and the "secret" war in Cambodia, which paved the way for Pol Pot by completely destroying the country, would've never taken place.

Munir Chalabi has written a crucial piece of analysis of the Iraqi oil law, which remains stillborn.

Here's a trio dealing with fallout from the recent Hamas putsch/Fatah coup, and it seems that Mahmoud Abbas and Salam Fayyad combined may yet outflank post-Oslo Arafat's desperate ineffectivity and enslavement to US-Israeli diktats. Amira Hass, an NE hero and an Israeli woman who has lived in and reported from Gaza for over a decade, gives us the latest from Israel's wet-dream of a "Palestinian state." Amira is characteristically even-handed in reporting the Palestinian political civil war, faulting

Israel, the occupier that shirks its obligation as an occupying power; the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, which is abandoning its citizens while continuing to try to ostracize the majority movement and make it fail; Hamas, which boasted about "liberating" Gaza and uses Qassam fire and declarations of "resistance" to escape its political and economic failures; the donor states, which use (generous) donations to cover up political powerlessness; and the United States, which is leading the boycott campaign [against Hamas] and supports Israel.

Exiled ex-Israeli MK Azmi Bishara, writing for al-Ahram Weekly, draws historical, political, and moral parallels between apartheid South Africa and the occupied Palestinian territories. This is a concern, of course, pursued in recent decades by Maxime Rodinson, Edward Said, Norman Finkelstein, Nelson Mandela, Ramzy Baroud, Jennifer Loewenstein, and others. Bishara remains under threat of arrest, were he to return to Israel, due to accusations that he provided tactical support to Hezbollah during last summer's Lebanon war, charges with both Bishara and Hezbollah have stringently denied.
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article8962.shtml

Well-Made World #14

US

• No Empires still hates Lee Bollinger. He was terrible as our university president, and only gets worse when it comes to placating the ADL and friends.
• NE could not pass this one up. Turns out that, since 1994, the US military has been researching the use of, shall we say, "unconventional," non-lethal weaponry. The highlight of this article is the revelation of one US hope to develop a bomb that would cause uncontrollable sexual urges among (male) enemy forces. "Let's watch these men fuck, and then kill them!"--is this how it would have gone? For more on enduring racist assumptions about Arab sexuality, from Andre Gide to Abu Ghraib, as well as an eloquent work of intellectual history, see Joseph Massad, Desiring Arabs, Chicago, 2007.
• Manhattan judge Charles S. Haight Jr. reverses his recent rebuke of NYPD surveillance tactics, dealing a blow to organized dissent in the city No Empires calls home.

Middle East

• Huge developments in Israel/Palestine over the last twenty-four hours. The Western "strategy" of isolating a democratically-elected government is playing out to devastating effect in the Gaza Strip, amid recent intense factional fighting between Hamas and Fatah. Abu Mazen has, unsurprisingly, dissolved the fragile unity government in Palestine and declared a state of emergency; what is surprising, however, is that Fatah appears to have been so thoroughly routed, given its links to Muhammad Dahlan and his millions in arms, courtesy of Washington. No Empires is prone to believe Hamas spokesmen who say that they were pressed to ensure that Dahlan's thugs (the National Security Forces) did not act as a supra-governmental force--though this, of course, does not mean we condone the violence, which of course plays right into Washington's and Jerusalem's hands.
• The Palestine Center for Human Rights documents, and condemns, the recent violence in the Occupied Territories, going so far as to apologize for their staff's inability to fully cover events as they unfold, given the starkly dangerous atmosphere in which they are working.
• Alvaro de Soto, former UN coordinator for the Middle East (as of yesterday) discusses Palestine/Israel in his End of Mission Report, claiming that the one-state solution is gaining ground, and also that Western refusals to deal with democratically-elected Hamas officials may lead to a weakening of democratic impluses amongst Palestinians. Full text of his speech can be found here.
• Not long after Desmond Tutu compares the situation in Palestine to South African apartheid, Israel walks all over him once again. Despite Tutu's efforts to investigate the carnage wreaked at Beit Hanoun last year, Itzhak Levanon shrugs it off, playing the part of the broken record. As usual, he cites "imbalanced and one-sided resolutions" in the UN council, "which utterly ignores the fact that we live with terrorism every day and that more than 3,000 Qassam rockets have been launched into Israel since we withdrew from Gaza," adding that "a large part of these missiles have been launched precisely from towns such as Beit Hanoun." Towns such as Beit Hanoun, No Empires asks? Cheap rhetorical devices abound.
  
• As you may well know, No Empires loves Ilan Pappe. Thank you JL.
• And finally, Amira Hass on the current situation in Gaza.

Europe

• Simon Kelner, editor of the Independent, responds in full to the exiting Prime Minister's repudiation of his paper, wondering if Blair would have gone so far if the Independent hadn't been so scathingly critical of Blair and Bush's march toward Baghdad.
  

well-made world #2

• "Blair makes his unwilling exit against a backdrop of car-bombs and mass carnage in Iraq, with hundreds of thousands left dead or maimed from his policies, and London a prime target for terrorist attack." tariq ali on "bush's zombie," tony blair.
• haaretz's indomitable amira hass on biometric "smart cards" for palestinians.
• the latest on the abduction of bbc reporter alan johnston, who no empires respects as the pre-eminent western journalist working in gaza at the time of his kidnapping.
• electronic iraq on the destruction of the tigris, now a "graveyard of bodies"
• today in the bronx at about 2:30pm, no empires noticed road blockages--duly enforced by NYPD trucks and vans--between 161 st and 158 st on river avenue, directly under the 4 train, outside of yankee stadium. see this article about the singing of "god bless america" at the stadium during the seventh inning. no empires does not approve.
• no empires loves bernie williams.

LATE EDIT(S):
Taking its place alongside Dreams of a Nation, curated by Columbia's Hamid Dabashi--and developed concurrently with a volume of the same name printed by Verso and featuring essays by Michel Khleifi, Bashir Abu-Manneh, Ella Shohat, Joseph Massad, and Dabashi--is the Emily Jacir-curated Palestinian Revolution Cinema. Review at the Electronic Intifada.

and thanks to john loose once again,
more on blair by tariq ali.