Archives: Articles

By Prof. Vandana Shiva

29 Sep 2020 – In March 2015, Bill Gates showed an image of the coronavirus during a TED Talk and told the audience that it was what the greatest catastrophe of our time would look like. The real threat to life, he said, is “not missiles, but microbes.” When the coronavirus pandemic swept over the earth like a tsunami five years later, he revived the war language, describing the pandemic as “a world war.”

“The coronavirus pandemic pits all of humanity against the virus,” he said.

In fact, the pandemic is not a war. The pandemic is a consequence of war. A war against life. The mechanical mind connected to the money machine of extraction has created the illusion of humans as separate from nature, and nature as dead, inert raw material to be exploited. But, in fact, we are part of the biome. And we are part of the virome. The biome and the virome are us. When we wage war on the biodiversity of our forests, our farms and in our guts, we wage war on ourselves.

The health emergency of the coronavirus is inseparable from the health emergency of extinction, the health emergency of biodiversity loss and the health emergency of the climate crisis. All of these emergencies are rooted in a mechanistic, militaristic, anthropocentric worldview that considers humans separate from — and superior to — other beings. Beings we can own, manipulate and control. All of these emergencies are rooted in an economic model based on the illusion of limitless growth and limitless greed, which violate planetary boundaries, and destroy the integrity of ecosystems and individual species.

New diseases arise because a globalized, industrialized, inefficient agriculture invades habitats, destroys ecosystems, and manipulates animals, plants and other organisms with no respect for their integrity or their health. We are linked worldwide through the spread of diseases like the coronavirus because we have invaded the homes of other species, manipulated plants and animals for commercial profits and greed, and cultivated monocultures. As we clear-cut forests, as we turn farms into industrial monocultures that produce toxic, nutritionally empty commodities, as our diets become degraded through industrial processing with synthetic chemicals and genetic engineering, and as we perpetuate the illusion that earth and life are raw materials to be exploited for profits, we are indeed connecting. But instead of connecting on a continuum of health by protecting biodiversity, integrity and self-organization of all living beings, including humans, we are connected through disease.

According to the International Labour Organization, “1.6 billion informal economy workers (representing the most vulnerable in the labour market), out of a worldwide total of 2 billion and a global workforce of 3.3 billion, have suffered massive damage to their capacity to earn a living. This is due to lockdown measures and/or because they work in the hardest-hit sectors.” According to the World Food Programme, a quarter of a billion additional people will be pushed to hunger and 300,000 could die every day. These, too, are pandemics that are killing people. Killing cannot be a prescription for saving lives.

Health is about life and living systems. There is no “life” in the paradigm of health that Bill Gates and his ilk are promoting and imposing on the entire world. Gates has created global alliances to impose top-down analysis and prescriptions for health problems. He gives money to define the problems, and then he uses his influence and money to impose the solutions. And in the process, he gets richer. His “funding” results in an erasure of democracy and biodiversity, of nature and culture. His “philanthropy” is not just philanthrocapitalism. It is philanthroimperialism.

The coronavirus pandemic and lockdown have revealed even more clearly how we are being reduced to objects to be controlled, with our bodies and minds as the new colonies to be invaded. Empires create colonies, colonies enclose the commons of the indigenous living communities and turn them into sources of raw material to be extracted for profits. This linear, extractive logic is unable to see the intimate relations that sustain life in the natural world. It is blind to diversity, cycles of renewal, values of giving and sharing, and the power and potential of self-organizing and mutuality. It is blind to the waste it creates and to the violence it unleashes. The extended coronavirus lockdown has been a lab experiment for a future without humanity.

On March 26, at a peak of the coronavirus pandemic and in the midst of the lockdown, Microsoft was granted a patent by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). Patent WO 060606 declares that “Human Body Activity associated with a task provided to a user may be used in a mining process of a cryptocurrency system….”

The “body activity” that Microsoft wants to mine includes radiation emitted from the human body, brain activities, body fluid flow, blood flow, organ activity, body movement such as eye movement, facial movement and muscle movement, as well as any other activities that can be sensed and represented by images, waves, signals, texts, numbers, degrees or any other information or data.

The patent is an intellectual property claim over our bodies and minds. In colonialism, colonizers assign themselves the right to take the land and resources of indigenous people, extinguish their cultures and sovereignty, and in extreme cases exterminate them. Patent WO 060606 is a declaration by Microsoft that our bodies and minds are its new colonies. We are mines of “raw material” — the data extracted from our bodies. Rather than sovereign, spiritual, conscious, intelligent beings making decisions and choices with wisdom and ethical values about the impacts of our actions on the natural and social world of which we are a part, and to which we are inextricably related, we are “users.” A “user” is a consumer without choice in the digital empire.

But that’s not the totality of Gates’ vision. In fact, it is even more sinister — to colonize the minds, bodies and spirits of our children before they even have the opportunity to understand what freedom and sovereignty look and feel like, beginning with the most vulnerable.

In May 2020, Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York announced a partnership with the Gates Foundation to “reinvent education.” Cuomo called Gates a visionary and argued that the pandemic has created “a moment in history when we can actually incorporate and advance [Gates’] ideas…all these buildings, all these physical classrooms—why with all the technology you have?”

In fact, Gates has been trying to dismantle the public education system of the U.S. for two decades. For him students are mines for data. That is why the indicators he promotes are attendance, college enrollment, and scores on a math and reading test, because these can be easily quantified and mined. In reimagining education, children will be monitored through surveillance systems to check if they are attentive while they are forced to take classes remotely, alone at home. The dystopia is one where children never return to schools, do not have a chance to play, do not have friends. It is a world without society, without relationships, without love and friendship.

As I look to the future in a world of Gates and Tech Barons, I see a humanity that is further polarized into large numbers of “throw away” people who have no place in the new Empire. Those who are included in the new Empire will be little more than digital slaves.

Or, we can resist. We can seed another future, deepen our democracies, reclaim our commons, regenerate the earth as living members of a One Earth Family, rich in our diversity and freedom, one in our unity and interconnectedness. It is a healthier future. It is one we must fight for. It is one we must claim.

We stand at a precipice of extinction. Will we allow our humanity as living, conscious, intelligent, autonomous beings to be extinguished by a greed machine that does not know limits and is unable to put a break on its colonization and destruction? Or will we stop the machine and defend our humanity, freedom and autonomy to protect life on earth?

Prof. Vandana Shiva is a physicist, ecofeminist, philosopher, activist, and author of more than 20 books and 500 papers.

5 October 2020

Source: www.transcend.org

By Jorge Capelán

26 Sep 2020 – No curfews, no lockdowns, no “stay at home”, no psychosis, no covid-calamities. There has been much talk about the Swedish corona strategy but the strategy of Nicaragua has been by far more successful, with many fewer deaths, no “economic rescue” for big banks and only limited damage to small and medium sized businesses.

In the midst of the worldwide economic debacle caused by covid hysteria, food self-sufficient, small business based, impoverished Nicaragua, has seen its exports grow over 10% the past 8 months because it did not shut down its economy. Precisely because it sustained its economy, it has not had to take on huge loans in order to face the emergency. Thus, its foreign debt levels remain within a readily manageable range, below 50% of GDP. (On the other hand, the economies of neighboring countries such as Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, are hurting badly with debt levels soaring).

I went out on Sunday afternoon in the barrio where I live in Managua. Bars full of people, even small family-run restaurants full of guests. No masks. The local convenience store which still has the “only-masked-customers-allowed” sign hanging from the door no longer refuses to let maskless people in.

There is no mask-wearing official policy in Nicaragua except for a recomendation that only patients with respiratory conditions or personnel taking care of them should wear masks. The wearing of surgical gloves by patients, on the other hand, is strongly discouraged as it poses a serious risk of contagion both of coronavirus and other respiratory deseases. In hospitals and health care units most people wear masks, be it out of precaution or out of plain courtesy. Otherwise, in offices and shops handwashing and alcohol hand sanitizers are readily available practically everywhere.

No restrictions have been put in place for public meetings and sports championships such as the popular local baseball league have taken place without problems, as well as scores of local fairs and other traditional activities that take place weekly.

Few massive activities have been cancelled due to covid, especially Catholic Church processions, most notably the traditional 10-day-long celebrations of Saint Dominic in Managua, for which thousands of people gather every year. For the most part, people have moved around, going out or heading to the beach as normal. Over the last 3 weeks, an all-time record number of over 83 thousand people visited the Salvador Allende Port and its lakeside promenade – a big and popular public leisure complex in Managua–, according to the authorities.

Schools haven’t closed down, which is very good for the country’s school children, since they provide a nutritious meal a day to 1.2 million children, a food security measure contributing greatly to improved public health for families across Nicaragua.

Yet, with just 2-3 covid-19 deaths per week the last couple of weeks (147 in total as of September 22nd), Nicaragua is by far the least affected country in Central America. Belice has only 19 deaths so far, but on the other hand, its population is a fraction of Nicaragua’s.

As in Germany and other countries, Nicaragua’s Health Ministery does differentiate between deaths of patients “with covid” and “from covid”. That is, a person can be with covid-19 but in the last instance die from an acute heart attack, while someone else who also has covid-19 can die “from covid-19” because of an upper lung condition typical of viruses that cause Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), such as SARS-CoV-2. That is the official explanation given by the authorities in a white paper on Nicaragua’s public health response to the pandemic issued last May.

Athough increased mortality due to pneumonia has been noticed (last week, 26% fewer pneumonia cases were reported, but with an increase of 8% in deaths – related but not directly caused by covid), the situation in the hospitals, health care centers, funeral parlours and graveyards is totally normal. No collapse anywhere.

By the end of April and the beginning of May, when the majority of covid deaths were reported, many people lost acquaintances, relatives or friends with comorbidities, but not even back then did the situation reach the kinds of scenes taking place in other countries. The health system never came even close to saturation point at any time.

In the Western press Nicaragua has been portrayed as a country that “did nothing” to divert the pandemic, which is totally false. Very early on, on January 21st, while the wealthy countries of North America and Europe dallied, Nicaragua declared a national epidemiological alert. That was the day after the Chinese authorities reported that country’s third death from covid-19. Some weeks later, Nicaragua’s national covid response committee elaborated a detailed protocol based on strenghtening the public health system and informing the population on a mass scale.

The strategy followed by the Nicaraguan Government was based on informing the population, taking care of the elderly and frail and strengthening the public health system, specially via enhanced control of the many diseases already threatening the population such as zika, dengue, malaria and chikungunya. The ordinary public health campaigns never stopped, with fumigation of areas with high prevalence of mosquitoes as well as routine annual vaccination programmes for children and the elderly.

The population was recommended to intensify hygiene routines and those in the high-risk groups were recommended to avoid crowds. Every institution devised plans and protocols to meet the covid emergency and in industrial complexes such as the free trade zones plans were agreed between employers and the workers’ unions in order to ensure that any eventual interruptions to production would not leave working families without an income (luckily, as it turned out, for the most part production was not very seriously affected by the pandemic).

The Ministry of Health from the very beginning has provided epidemiological surveillance for people affected by epidemic diseases typical for the time of year: dengue, malaria (both vivax and falciparum), chikungunya, zika, pneumonia, tuberculosis, H1-N1, leptospirosis, chagas disease, as well ensuring care for chronic diseases, for example cancer treatment, renal dialysis or cardiology conditions.

People with respiratory problems, cough and flu, are being given special attention and follow-up, to determine if they need further monitoring depending on their corresponding chronic condition: diabetes mellitus, chronic kidney disease, stroke, hypertensive disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, pneumonia, among others.

A very successful initiative now being implemented is the program “My Hospital My Community” by which all public hospitals mobilize their specialized health care units out into their respective communities in order to actively reach out to people with various chronic conditions who for various reasons may have difficulties going to their local hospital –among them persons who are afraid of getting covid-19 if they go to a hospital.

As mentioned earlier, schools and universities have remained open because on-line distance learning is not an option for people on low incomes. However, because some parents were reluctant to send their children to school a specially designed series of television classes on all subjects have been produced and broadcast both on public television channels and on radio so that children could make good any classes they may have missed.

Facing the recurring risk of volcano eruptions, earthquakes, hurricanes as well as all the various kinds of tropical diseases, countries such as Nicaragua very much need to develop a routine system for early warning and management of emergencies, simply because those events are part of our everyday reality.

Nicaragua is among the countries most threatened by global warming and has been able to deal simply and readily with covid because since 2007 it has developed an integral civil defence and public health philosophy based on broad popular participation, a highly operational public sector and a system trained and ready to articulate cohesively all the available resources.

Whether addressing natural disasters or national public health challenges, Nicaragua over the years has built up an unrivalled organizational infrastructure that quickly mobilizes thousands of volunteer activists and public sector employees. So covid didn’t take the country unawares.

During the past 13 years Nicaragua has experienced dramatic advances. Back in 2006, before the Sandinistas returned to power, overall poverty was 48%. Today it is 24.6%. 54% of people had no electricity. Today, 98.5% have it. 70% didn’t have running water. Today 93% have it. Infant mortality was 29 per 1000 infants born. Today it is down to 12 per 1000 – a reduction of over 60%. Almost 9 out of 10 births now take place in health centers while before most children were delivered at home. In 2006 the country had 2044km of roads (only 30% in good condition). In 2019 the paved road network was 4590km (all in good repair). The economy grew from USD 6.7bn to 12.5bn in this period.

Amidst this development in a region cursed by neoliberalism, public health has played a central role in Sandinista policies. From the outset, privatization of health care was stopped and rolled back. A new, community and family-based preventive health model was developed using sector based territorial health areas grouping together communities of between 600 to 1,000 families, equivalent to 3,000 to 5,000 inhabitants, depending on whether the sector is rural or urban.

In each of these territories, so-called “cabinets for the family, community and life” have been organized incorporating socially-engaged members of society who effectively monitor the local health situation and are able to address not only sanitary and medical issues, but also the social aspects of public health, of particular importance.

For example, the program “Todos con Voz” (“Everyone with a Voice”) assesses the overall situation of each person with disability in a household and assists, not only with wheelchairs or therapies, but also with economic support and training in order to improve the economic activity available to the whole household. The program “Amor para los más chiquitos” (“Love for the littlest ones”) promotes better care in the family for very young children. Other programs are aimed at helping poor families with children in school age so that they don’t have to send their children to work and so on.

Public health investment has also seen a dramatic increase from USD 32 to USD 70 per capita (2018). Total health care expenditure went from USD 111.9 million to USD468.6 million in 2020. In 2006 there were 22,083 health workers; in 2020, there are 36,649, including doctors, nurses and technicians, many of them educated in Cuba and other countries.

The Sandinista government has built 18 new hospitals and there are plans to build 15 more, 6 of which are already under construction. The total health infrastructure of the country comprises 143 health centers; 1,333 medical posts; 178 maternity homes and 66 mobile clinics – way ahead per population of its Central American neighbors.

All this investment has a strong technological component as it shortens hospitalization periods, in many cases is much safer and makes more rational use of available health personnel. Among recent hi-tech investments are two linear accelerators to treat cancer (one of them has already been set in place, one is about to be installed) and the widespread use of laparoscopic surgeries and other modern techniques.

Recently, a molecular biology lab was inaugurated capable of analyzing evidence of several diseases, including COVID-19. This lab is the second most advanced in the region and has been recognized by the WHO as having Level 3 Biosafety.

Also, the Russian Mechnikov medicine factory was inaugurated, which can produce 12 million influenza vaccines per year. The Cuban drug Interferon Alpha-2B (successfully used to treat patients with COVID-19) is expected to be produced in this lab as well as the Russian Covid vaccine.

All this high-tech investment does not exclude the widespread use of traditional or natural medicine. A public health sector “Pain clinic” has been built to give treatment in acupuncture and many other traditional therapies, and specialists in those treatments are available in many health care facilities all over the country.

Nicaragua is a country where 80% of farmland holdings are under 875 acres, worked by small and medium sized producers. It is a country where small-scale family businesses drive the economy, controlling over 60% of disposable income, providing around 80% of the country’s employment and producing 90% of all the food it consumes. So while it simply cannot afford to “lock down” or “stay home”, conversely it didn’t need to take “extraordinary measures” to face the covid emergency because it already had an immensely resilient system designed and in permanent readiness to face any and every kind of emergency.

For Nicaragua, the “blue pill” of lockdown or “stay at home” would have been pure cyanide, and since its leadership long ago took the red pill, it was able to discern the true interests behind the phony rich-country pandemic discourse and its hidden “great re-set” agenda.

5 October 2020

Source: www.transcend.org

By Jonathan Cook

26 Sep 2020 – In my recent post on the current hearings at the Old Bailey over Julian Assange’s extradition to the United States, where he would almost certainly be locked away for the rest of his life for the crime of doing journalism, I made two main criticisms of the Guardian.

A decade ago, remember, the newspaper worked closely in collaboration with Assange and Wikileaks to publish the Iraq and Afghan war diaries, which are now the grounds on which the US is basing its case to lock Assange behind bars in a super-max jail.

My first criticism was that the paper had barely bothered to cover the hearing, even though it is the most concerted attack on press freedom in living memory. That position is unconscionably irresponsible, given its own role in publishing the war diaries. But sadly it is not inexplicable. In fact, it is all too easily explained by my second criticism.

That criticism was chiefly levelled at two leading journalists at the Guardian, former investigations editor David Leigh and reporter Luke Harding, who together wrote a book in 2011 that was the earliest example of what would rapidly become a genre among a section of the liberal media elite, most especially at the Guardian, of vilifying Assange.

In my earlier post I set out Leigh and Harding’s well-known animosity towards Assange – the reason why one senior investigative journalist, Nicky Hager, told the Old Bailey courtroom the pair’s 2011 book was “not a reliable source”. That was, in part, because Assange had refused to let them write his official biography, a likely big moneymaker. The hostility had intensified and grown mutual when Assange discovered that behind his back they were writing an unauthorised biography while working alongside him.

But the bad blood extended more generally to the Guardian, which, like Leigh and Harding, repeatedly betrayed confidences and manoeuvred against Wikileaks rather the cooperating with it. Assange was particularly incensed to discover that the paper had broken the terms of its written contract with Wikileaks by secretly sharing confidential documents with outsiders, including the New York Times.

Leigh and Harding’s book now lies at the heart of the US case for Assange’s extradition to the US on so-called “espionage” charges. The charges are based on Wikileaks’ publication of leaks provided by Chelsea Manning, then an army private, that revealed systematic war crimes committed by the US military.

Inversion of truth

Lawyers for the US have mined from the Guardian book claims by Leigh that Assange was recklessly indifferent to the safety of US informants named in leaked files published by Wikileaks.

Assange’s defence team have produced a raft of renowned journalists, and others who worked with Wikileaks, to counter Leigh’s claim and argue that this is actually an inversion of the truth. Assange was meticulous about redacting names in the documents. It was they – the journalists, including Leigh – who were pressuring Assange to publish without taking full precautions.

But to bolster its feeble claim against Assange – that he was reckless about redactions – the US has hoped to demonstrate that in September 2011, long after publication of the Iraq and Afghan diaries, Wikileaks did indeed release a trove of documents – official US cables – that Assange failed to redact.

This is true. But it only harms Assange’s defence if the US can successfully play a game of misdirection – and the Guardian has been crucial to that strategy’s success. Until now the US has locked the paper into collaborating in its war on Assange and journalism – if only through its silence – by effectively blackmailing the Guardian with a dark, profoundly embarrassing secret the paper would prefer was not exposed.

In fact, the story behind the September 2011 release by Wikileaks of those unredacted documents is entirely different from the story the court and public is being told. The Guardian has conspired in keeping quiet about the real version of events for one simple reason – because it, the Guardian, was the cause of that release.

Jonathan Cook is an award-winning British journalist based in Nazareth, Israel, since 2001.

5 October 2020

Source: www.transcend.org

By Ramona Wadi

The international community has played a role in maintaining colonialism and preventing decolonization from emerging as a just solution. This is the second installment of a two-part article. The first part ran on October 1, 2020.

In his introduction to “The Palestine Nakba” (Zed Books, 2012), Nur Masalha writes, “The deletion of historic Palestine was designed not only to strengthen the newly created state, but also to consolidate the myth of the ‘unbroken link’ between the days of Joshua and the Israeli state.” Furthermore, in his book “Imperial Israel and the Palestinians: The Politics of Expansion” (Pluto Press, 2000), Nur Masalha asserts, “‘Greater Israel’ is both a territorial concept and an ideology aimed at achieving maximum territorial expansion and imperial domination in the region.” This succinct description of Zionism’s ultimate aims is absent from international reckonings of what the UN calls “the Palestinian question.”

According to Zionist narratives, the Palestinian people were either present or absent, depending on whether the myth of the barren land was evoked, or the need to cleanse the land of its indigenous inhabitants. Yet Ze’ev Jabotinsky clearly acknowledged the Palestinian people’s presence and connection to their land, in his rationale which justified the Zionist aims of colonizing the land: “Every indigenous people will resist alien settlers as long as they see any hope of ridding themselves of the danger of foreign settlement.” To crush Palestinian resistance, Jabotinsky advocated primarily for the use of force to achieve indigenous subjugation, after which negotiations with the Palestinians would happen.

“Every indigenous people will resist alien settlers as long as they see any hope of ridding themselves of the danger of foreign settlement.”

The Palestinian people find themselves in a quandary designated by the UN. While the UN is purportedly dedicated to “eradicating colonialism” through a plan of action which is now in its third decade, the institution is also influenced by the colonial past. Hence the discrepancy between the UN reaffirming “the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples for independence, territorial integrity, national unity and liberation from colonial domination, apartheid and foreign occupation by all available means, including armed struggle,” and the refusal to allow Palestinians to achieve such liberation. The latter is influenced by the UN’s acquiescence to the Zionist narrative and the later insistence upon the two-state compromise as the only solution, which contradicts the earlier UN resolutions.

Looking at the earlier Zionist narrative as traced in Natasha Gill’s analysis, it is clear that the UN contributed to the “peace” discourse by upholding the erasure of the earlier Palestinian anti-colonial struggle against colonization. UN discourse, even resolutions which claim to support Palestinian rights, are first and foremost concerned with colonial preservation. The Palestinian Right of Return is one such example – the text assumes Palestinian responsibility for making amends and “peace” with the colonizers that ethnically cleansed their towns and villages.

The understanding of the Palestinian narrative and the Zionist narrative, therefore, cannot be exploited to bring about an understanding that preserves the colonial project in Palestine. In other words, an understanding of colonization in Palestine should bring about the realization that the solution to Israel’s security narrative can happen with the decolonization of land stolen in the name of Zionist ideology and the Zionist colonial enterprise.

Palestine’s pre-1948 history has two facets. One is the gradual appropriation of land, which later gained international political support. The other is the Palestinian anti-colonial struggle itself, legitimate even in accordance with international dictates, and refuted by Israel and the international community as a threat to Israel’s security.

Israeli academic, writer, and activist Haim Bresheeth Žabner’s latest book, “An Army Like No Other: How The Israeli Defense Forces Made A Nation” (Verso Books, 2020) holds an important observation that refutes the simplistic anti-Semitic claims woven into the Zionist narrative. The lack of security Israel complains about is a direct result of “political and military praxis, not their racial origin.”

The lack of security Israel complains about is a direct result of “political and military praxis, not their racial origin.”

Bresheeth’s observation ties into Jabotinsky’s play on power and subjugation. Drawing upon its political and military power, Israel has used its advantage to spin a fabricated narrative regarding the Palestinian anti-colonial struggle, and one that shapes the current discourse on Palestinian resistance and political blame.

Anti-colonial struggle “by all means” as the UN defines such resistance, includes violent resistance. However, the alleged gratuitous Palestinian violence is part of the Zionist narrative which thrives upon recognition and non-recognition of the existence of Palestinian people in their land, depending on what Israel is seeking to achieve militarily and diplomatically. Palestinian armed resistance in the early colonization period was borne out of political isolation and a recurring failure of the international community to see early settler-colonization for what it was – a plan in motion that would eventually expand over Palestinian land.

As the two-state compromise and the more recent US “Deal of the Century” have shown, “peace” is just a euphemism for the condoning of Israeli colonization. It is the concept of “peace” which empowers the Zionist narrative; after all, the international community has failed to hold the political ideology and its implementation accountable after having incorporated the Zionist narrative into its diplomatic agenda. The two-state paradigm – staunchly described by the current UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres as “the only solution” – is concerned with Israel’s security at the expense of the Palestinians’ ongoing oppression. The US “Deal of the Century” clarifies the extent of this expense.

By eliminating all Palestinian claims to their land, including a plan to alter the definition of who qualifies as a Palestinian refugee, the US has taken Israel closer to its myths.

By eliminating all Palestinian claims to their land, including a plan to alter the definition of who qualifies as a Palestinian refugee, the US has taken Israel closer to its myths. On the flip side of this coin, the US-Israeli scheming to hasten the colonization process requires an even deeper evaluation of the option remaining for Palestinians – decolonization – and how this can bring the Palestinian narrative to the fore. Not as an equal to the Zionist narrative, for that would diminish the severity of colonialism and the erasure of Palestinian memory, but as a departure point for a solution that would include restoration of rights and land for Palestinians.

Resolving “the conflict,” as the international community defines Zionist colonization in Palestine, does not incorporate the settler-colonial and the colonized paradigms. It is a detached, simplistic alternative that chooses power imbalance to force a solution, in a similar manner to how colonialism used force to extricate a semblance of acquiescence from the indigenous, colonized population.

“The conflict” has prioritized Israeli demands over Palestinian rights. Peace negotiations, after all, are about appeasement and profit. With the international community heavily complicit and invested in the Zionist colonial project, a proper reckoning through decolonization would likely be a long process. On the ground, the settler-colonial population is fulfilling the function of ethnic cleansing through a gradual replacement of the indigenous population.

Internationally, the UN’s failure to even acknowledge Israel’s settler-colonial character is manufacturing cycles of impunity which are incorporated into the two-state paradigm. The latter completely eliminates the root of the problem, which is the Zionist colonial project and which, in itself, is the main obstacle to decolonization that few wish to talk about. By eliminating the Zionist colonial project from the “solution,” as mainstream narratives do, the exclusionary nature of the Israeli settler-colonial state is maintained and entrenched.

Historically, Palestinians have resisted such exclusion from their own narrative. At first, through attempts at diplomacy and later, through anti-colonial resistance, only to repeat the cycle until the present day, where diplomacy has failed Palestinians not only by neglecting to recognize their political demands, but also by refusing the Palestinian population the right to resist the colonizers with all disposable means.

Reversing the hegemonic narrative that restructured colonization into the “Israeli-Palestinian” or “Israeli-Arab” conflict is an important step in decolonization.

Reversing the hegemonic narrative that restructured colonization into the “Israeli-Palestinian” or “Israeli-Arab” conflict – the latter more damaging than the other in terms of misrepresentation – is an important step in decolonization. European Zionist colonialism has created victims and indigeneity out of its fabricated narratives, while denying the ties which Palestinians have to their land. Furthermore, the construction of indigeneity as pertaining to the settler-colonial population has also aided two main narratives central to Israel’s existence – the “Jewish state” and “security.”

Both need to be overturned, and achieving this necessitates the incorporation of Palestinian narratives into political diplomacy; the latter with an understanding of how international law provides for legitimate anti-colonial struggle. For justice to be achieved, it is not incumbent upon the colonized Palestinian population to make concessions. Such expectations only confirm the international community’s intention to prolong the colonization process until it becomes irreparable for the Palestinian people.

In terms of power and land, both Israel and the international community have expressed opposition to decolonization. Talk of a one-state “solution” has been voiced by some Palestinians, in which both peoples live in a secular, democratic state. The question is not whether Palestinians are open to solutions, but if Israel is willing to accept a solution which, in colonial narratives, is equivalent to a just loss and therefore, reflects the political justice which must be delivered to the colonized.

Hence, if decolonization is not possible, and apartheid is the norm that characterizes a Jewish state, with a forever resistant Palestinian people, how can true justice be achieved for a lasting peace?

All notions of equity between “both sides” must be discarded. The Palestinian concessions to Israel throughout the decades have wrought an irreparable loss that even the international community would not be able to justify were it not so heavily invested in guarding Israel’s interests. To require further concessions from Palestinians is to elevate the Zionist settler-colonial enterprise in Palestine.

A rejection of Zionism from the Palestinian people is a form of resistance; such rejection from the pro-Israel camp is a must, in order to start altering the prevailing narrative, which is based on myths and exploitation, as opposed to international law.

The one-state possibility must also not be jeopardized by Israel’s concept of exclusivity. If Palestinians are willing to consider the one-state as a solution, Israel and its supporters need to acknowledge the illegalities – even the crime – of colonialism in Palestine. A rejection of Zionism from the Palestinian people is a form of resistance; such rejection from the pro-Israel camp is a must, in order to start altering the prevailing narrative, which is based on myths and exploitation, as opposed to international law.

For, as Gill concludes: “while many Palestinians have (in various agreements and public commitments) been saying ‘yes’ to Israel’s de facto existence since 1988, they will continue to say ‘no’ to Zionism itself. Condoning it would require Palestinians swallow whole the major tenets of the Jewish ‘narrative’ and sign on the dotted line affirming that the creation of a Jewish state on land they considered as their own was a legitimate enterprise; that their own rejection of that enterprise was irrational or morally wrong; and that the Arab’s 1400-year history in Palestine should be seen as a brief and inconsequential interregnum between two more important eras of Jewish sovereignty.”

“This will never happen. The sooner the pro-Israel camp accepts this and stops trying to change the unchangeable, the sooner they can determine what steps might be taken in the interests of their own peace and security.”

Ramona Wadi is a freelance journalist, book reviewer and blogger.

4 October 2020

Source: palestineupdates.com

By Dr Ramzy Baroud

Overwhelmed by uncontrollable circumstances, the Greek government is bracing for another financial crisis that promises to be as terrible as the last one in 2015.

Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, announced, on September 12, that Athens has made a “robust” arms deal that will “reinforce the armed forces” and create a “national shield”.

However, beyond Mitsotakis’ mask of confidence, there is a nightmare brewing that is likely to haunt Greece for years to come. Five years ago, when Athens defaulted on its debt, largely to European countries and institutions, France and Germany rushed to further strangle the humbled country by selling it yet more military hardware.

History is repeating itself; this time, the crisis involves the country’s enduring dispute with Turkey over territorial waters. Invoking European solidarity, the French are, once again, pushing their military hardware on embattled and economically weak Greece. Consequently, the latter is set to purchase 18 French-made Rafale warplanes, four navy helicopters, new anti-tank weapons, navy torpedoes and air force missiles.

While the Greek government is presenting the move as a show of force in case of a future military conflict with neighboring Turkey, the French arms will intensify Greece’s vulnerability to French political diktats, now and in the future.

This is part of a larger pattern for France. French President, Emmanuel Macron, is, again, assuming the role of savior. Lately, he has taken on the role of rebuilding devastated Beirut following the massive explosion in August. In return, he expects – in fact, demands – political acquiescence from all of Lebanon’s political forces.

The crisis in Greece, however, is different. The Turkish-Greek East Mediterranean conflict is multifaceted as it involves many regional players, all vying for the same prize: some dividends in the massive deposits of newly discovered natural gas. While the conflict is presented as a continuation of the protracted hostilities between Turkey and Greece, in actuality, the latter is but a small facet of a new great game, the outcome of which could change the dynamics in the Mediterranean altogether.

While NATO is falling apart at the seams, due partly to the current US administration’s isolationist policies, European countries, like France and Italy, are acting independently from the once-unified Western military alliance.

Europe is losing its once strategically dominant position in the Mediterranean region. After years of investing in the decade-long Libyan conflict, European countries are likely to go home empty-handed.

For years, France has backed the Eastern-based forces of Libyan General, Khalifa Haftar, while Italy supported the Government of National Accord (GNA) in the West. The two NATO members, openly clashing politically, had hoped that the outcome of the Libyan war would provide them with much military, political and economic leverage.

Nevertheless, the news emerging from the region is clearly contrary, in that Turkey and Russia, which staked their claims over Libya only recently, are the ones who are now controlling the fate of this country. Not only are Ankara and Moscow the main power brokers in Libya – Russia supporting Haftar, while Istanbul backing the GNA – it is likely that they will shape Libya’s future, as well. In their second rounds of negotiations in Ankara on September 16, the two countries have endorsed a ceasefire in Libya as part of a political process that should eventually stabilize the warring country.

The irony is that, until fairly recent, there was discord between Turkey and Russia. The conflict in Syria had reached a point where war in 2015 seemed imminent. This has changed as both countries saw an unprecedented opportunity arising from the relative absence of Washington as a direct player in the region’s conflicts, coupled with European/NATO disunity and internal conflict.

With time, more opportunities arose in Libya and, eventually, in the Eastern Mediterranean. When France and Italy showed enthusiasm in an emerging alliance between Israel, Greece and Cyprus around the EastMed gas pipeline project, Turkey swooped in to counter-balance this with an alliance of its own. In November 2019, Turkey and Libya’s GNA signed a Memorandum of Understanding that expanded Turkey’s areas of influence in the Mediterranean and forced France to contend with yet another challenge to its leadership in the region.

Moreover, emboldened Turkey widened its search for natural gas in the Mediterranean to cover a massive area that extends from the Turkish southern coast to Libya’s north-east coast. With NATO being unable to present a unified front, France advanced alone, hoping to sustain a geopolitical status quo that has governed the Mediterranean for decades.

That status quo is no longer sustainable as a new political contract is sure to be written, especially as the nature of the Turkish-Russian alliance is becoming clearer and promises to be a lasting one.

The mutual interests between Turkey and Russia are likely to culminate into an actual alliance should their ongoing negotiations pay lasting dividends. On the other side of that possible coalition, there are reluctant and fractious European powers, led by self-serving France, whose strategic vision has suffered a major blow in Libya as it did in Syria, years earlier.

Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, is now leading Russian diplomacy to find a non-military resolution to the Turkish-Greek conflict. This, in itself, is an indication of Russia’s growing prowess in a region that, until very recently, was dominated solely by NATO.

Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle.

30 September 2020

Source: countercurrents.org

By Dr Adil Malik

Often in life, when one has kids, they plant a thousand wishes, dreams and aspirations for them- the kind of life they’d want them to have, the kind of clothes they’d like to see them in, the kind of the person they envision them to be and numerous other colours of an ideal life. I was blessed too with the opportunity to be a father few years back, but sitting back in silence, I question sometimes if it was really that fortunate?… In a land of unending uncertainties and suffering, do I stand as someone blessed or as a condemned sinner for having dragged someone to this world, regardless of his will.

Born in what is called the golden era of Bollywood in Kashmir, my childhood in the 80s started as a surreal tale in the valleys of Kashmir. But as fate would have it, the roads soon turned into rivers of blood, the songs we played on our radio sets soon translated into elegies for deceased, our joyful shouts in the streets were soon drowned by the wailing of widows, Kashmir painted a grim contrast as I, including my peers, resisted growing up in those nights resounding gunshots and encounters. I now remember those dark nights and days filled with nothing but fear and tears.

Many years down the line, my heart still skips a beat whenever I see my children watching the news now. They often ask me, why and how does the torment spread in Kashmir like wildfire. This question used to often render me speechless and captivate my thoughts even as a child and it still leaves me speechless with shivers running down my spine. I still at times, keep a brave face on and tell my kids to not fear, switching channels on the screen; pretending everything is perfect in the land they live in. However, deep down, the child in me still fears losing them to reality.

For how long can I lie to myself and them? For how long can I prevent the fundamentalist or extremist ideological influences from affecting their pure souls? My children have an unbound access to news channels, internet and social networks. They are the next generation well-informed people with a rational thinking process. They have their own set of questions pertaining to the history and future of Kashmir and Kashmiris. For how long can I keep defending the sad realities of our life?

When I go out to earn a living for them, I have a persistent doubt if I would be fortunate enough to return home unharmed, if I would see my family, if I would be able to embrace them once again. Today I have no reason to hide that I still live all those traumas that I witnessed in my formative years. These are the wounds I have secretly hidden from myself and my family for very long under the garb of education, prosperity and future.

Although I have always been a man to continue believing in hope and future, there are moments like these when my hidden vulnerabilities resurface and I cannot help but recall Agha Shahid Ali’s poem, Kashmir is a country without a post office. I resonate with this every single time, when despite being born here, I am forced to feel I don’t belong here. Every single time while holding the tender hands of my children, I am forced to take sides, I invariably look into the sense of loss and bewilderment in my children’s eyes. What future do I promise them in a place where the future of their father remains sadly debatable.

I do not want them to suffer the fate, I did. I don’t want them to see dead bodies sprawling across their green meadows. I don’t want them to get locked in their secret bubbles and not have a chance to bloom in life. I don’t want them to grow up into hypocritical fathers that lie blatantly to their children.

This is a cry from a father, maybe to all those who share the same trouble as I, or maybe to thousands of those unborn children who are at the brink of slipping into a void of oblivion and uncertainty. Please do not arrive at our doorsteps, And for the parents who perhaps have eternally sinned by supplying the bodies that eventually burn, should we all sometime connect together and look for ways how to prevent those we have immensely and deeply loved?

Dr Adil Malik is a Social activist and Public Servant Serving as Govt employee in health and medical education department of J&K

27 September 2020

Source: countercurrents.org

By Edward Curtin

“If the world is upside down the way it is now, wouldn’t we have to turn it over to get it to stand up straight?” – Eduardo Galeano, Upside Down, 1998

For decades, Andre Vltchek, an old-school journalist and artist (but a young man) who traveled the world in search of truth and who always stood up straight, tried to revolve the world and encourage people to revolt against injustice. In this age of arm-chair reporters, he stood out for his boldness and indefatigable courage. He told it straight. This irritated certain people and some pseudo-left publications, who sensed in him a no bullshit fierceness and nose for hypocrisy that frightened them, so they stopped publishing his writing. He went where so many others feared to tread, and he talked to people in places that were often the victims of Western imperialistic violence. He defended the defenseless and encouraged their defense.

Now he is dead. He died in the back seat of a chauffeur driven rental car on an overnight drive to Istanbul, Turkey. He was sleeping, and when his wife attempted to wake him upon arrival at their hotel, she couldn’t. He was 57-years-old.

Let him sleep in peace, but let his words ring out, his passionate cries for justice and peace in a world of violent predators.

Those who knew him and his work feel a great, great loss. His friend and colleague Peter Koenig wrote this touching goodbye.

As Koenig says, Vltchek was always defending those around the world who are considered disposable non-people, the Others, the non- whites, victims of Western wars, both military and economic, in places such as West Papua, Iraq, Syria, Africa, etc. He had a chip on his shoulder, a well justified chip, against the one-sided Western media and its elites that were always lecturing the rest of the world about their realities.

He was recently in the United States, and here is what he wrote:

But notice one thing: it is them, telling us, again, telling the world what it is and what it is not! You would never hear such statements in Africa, the Middle East, or Asia. There, people know perfectly well what it really is all about, whether it is about race or not!

I have just spent two weeks in the United States, analyzing the profound crises of U.S. society. I visited Washington, D.C., Minneapolis, New York, and Boston. I spoke to many people in all those places. What I witnessed was confusion and total ignorance about the rest of the world. The United States, a country which has been brutalizing our Planet for decades, is absolutely unable to see itself in the context of the entire world. People, including those from the media, are outrageously ignorant and provincial.

And they are selfish.

I asked many times: “Do black lives matter all over the world? Do they matter in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and do they matter in West Papua?” I swear, I received no coherent answer.

Somebody has to tell them… Somebody has to force them to open their eyes.

A few years ago, I was invited to Southern California to show my documentary work from Africa (my feature documentary film Rwanda Gambit, about West-triggered genocides in both Rwanda and later in the Democratic Republic of Congo), where millions of black people are dying, in order for the vast majority of the U.S. whites to live in piggish opulence.

But before I was allowed to present, I was warned: ‘Remember, people here are sensitive. Do not show too much of brutal reality, as it could disturb them.’

Hearing that, I almost left the event. Only my respect for the organizer made me stay.

Now I am convinced: it is time to force them to watch; to see rivers of blood, which their laziness, selfishness, and greed have triggered. It is time to force them to hear shouts of the agony of the others.

But as everyone knows, it is nearly impossible to force people to open their eyes and ears when they are dead set against doing so. Andre tried so hard to do that, and his frustration grew apace with those efforts that seemed to fall on deaf ears.

He was a relentless fighter, but he was a lover, too. His love for the people and cultures of the world was profound. Like Albert Camus, he tried to serve both beauty and suffering, the noblest of vocations. A lover of literature and culture, the best art and beauty ever produced, he was appalled at the way so many in the West had fallen into the pit of ignorance, illiteracy, and the grip of propaganda so tight that “what is missing is life. Euphoria, warmth, poetry and yes – love – are all in extremely short supply there.”

He sensed, and said it, that nihilism rules in the United States beneath the compulsive consumerism and the denial of the violence that the U.S. inflicts on people across the world. It was selfishness run amok. Me me me. It was, he felt, soul death, the opposite of all the ostensible religiousness that is a cover story for despair. He wrote:

It has to be stopped. I say it because I do love this life, the life, which still exists outside the Western realm; I’m intoxicated with it, obsessed with it. I live it to the fullest, with great delight, enjoying every moment of it.

Poetry, music, great literature, these he loved as he fought on the barricades for peace.

I urge you to read his article, Love, Western Nihilism and Revolutionary Optimism.

He was a rare and courageous man. Let us ring bells in his honor.

Here’s a Kenneth Rexroth poem for Andre, the fighter with the poet’s heart:

No Word

The trees hang silent

In the heat….

Undo your heart

Tell me your thoughts

What you were

And what you are….

Like the bells no one

Has ever rung

Edward Curtin is an independent writer.

25 September 2020

Source: countercurrents.org

By Robert Hunziker

The World Wildlife Foundation, in collaboration with the Zoological Society of London, recently issued an eye-popping description of the forces of humanity versus life in nature, the Living Planet Report 2020, but the report should really be entitled the Dying Planet Report 2020 because that’s what’s happening in the real world. Not much remains alive.

The report, released September 10th, describes how the over-exploitation of ecological resources by humanity from 1970 to 2016 has contributed to a 68% plunge in wild vertebrate populations, inclusive of mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and fish.

The report offers a fix-it: “Bending the Curve Initiative,” described in more detail to follow. The causes of collapse are found in human recklessness and/or neglect of ecosystems. It’s partially fixable (maybe) but don’t hold your breath.

What if stocks plunged 68%? What then? Why, of course, that is an all-hands-on-deck panic scenario with the Federal Reserve Bank repeatedly pressing “a white hot printing press button,” hopefully, avoiding destructive deflationary forces looming in the background. But, an astounding jaw-dropping 68% loss of vertebrates doesn’t seem to budge the panic needle nearly enough to count.

Of special note, according to the Report, tropical sub-regions were clobbered, hit hard with 94% loss of vertebrate life, which is essentially total extinction. For comparison purposes, the worst extinction event in history, the Permian-Triassic, aka: the Great Dying, of 252 million years ago took down 96% of marine life and has been classified as “global annihilation.”

According to the Report, on a worldwide basis, two-thirds (2/3rds) of wild vertebrate life has vanished in only 46 years or within one-half a human lifetime. That is mind-boggling, and it is indicative of misguided mindlessness, prompting a query of what the next 46 years will bring. What remains is an operative question?

According to the report: “Until 1970, humanity’s Ecological Footprint was smaller than the Earth’s rate of regeneration. To feed and fuel our 21st century, we are overusing the Earth’s biocapacity by at least 56%.” (Report, page 6) Meaning, we’ve gone from equilibrium to a huge deficit of 50% in less than 50 years. Putting it mildly, that’s terrifying!

As stated in the Report, we’re effectively using and abusing and trampling the equivalence of one and one-half planets. How long does that last? The experience of the past 46 years provides an answer, which is: Not much longer.

The denuding, destructing of natural biodiversity is almost beyond description, certainly beyond human comprehension, which may be a big part of the problem of recognition. Still, by and large, people read the World Wildlife Foundation report and continue on with business as usual. This lackadaisical behavior by the public has been ongoing for decades and not likely to end anytime soon. Therefore, an eureka moment of radical change in farming practices and ecosystem husbandry is almost too much to wish for after years, and years, of preaching by environmentalists about the ills associated with the anthropogenic growth machine.

In all, with ever-faster approaching finality, and worldwide failure to act to save the planet, the answer may be that people must learn to adapt to a deteriorating world.

More to the point, the Report is “an extermination report.” Consider the opening sentence: “At a time when the world is reeling from the deepest global disruption and health crisis of a lifetime, this year’s Living Planet Report provides unequivocal and alarming evidence that nature is unraveling and that our planet is flashing red warning signs of vital natural systems failure.” (Report, page 4)

Accordingly, unequivocally “nature is unraveling.” And, the planet is “flashing red warning signs of vital natural systems failure.”

Why repeat that disheartening info? Simply put, it demands repeating over and over again. Yes, “nature is unraveling.” And, by all indications, time is short as “flashing red warning signs” are crying for help. But, will it happen? Or, does biz as usual rattle onwards towards total extinction of life way ahead of anybody’s best guess, which, based upon how rapidly the forces of the anthropocene are gobbling up the countryside, could be within current lifetimes. But, honestly, who knows when?

Still, with great hope but not enough fanfare, the Report proposes a new research initiative called “Bending the Curve Initiative” to reverse biodiversity loss via (1) unprecedented conservation measures and (2) a total remake of food production techniques.

One of the upshots of the breakdown in nature is the issue of “adequate food for humanity.” Accordingly: “Where and how we produce food is one of the biggest human-caused threats to nature and to our ecosystems, making the transformation of our global food system more important than ever,” Ibid

Which implies the end of rainforests obliteration, the end of industrial farming, full stop, eliminating mono-crop farming, and “stopping dead in its tracks” the use of toxic, deadly insecticides, which kill crucial life-originating ecosystems by bucketloads, as for example, 75% loss of flying insects over 27 years in nature reserves in portions of Europe (Source: Krefeld Entomological Society, est. 1905).

What kills 75% of flying insects?

Additionally, the Report recognizes the necessity of “transformation of the prevailing economic system.” Meaning, a transformation away from the radical infinite growth hormones that are attached to the world’s lowest offshore wages and lowest offshore regulations as an outgrowth of neoliberalism, which is rapidly destroying the world. It’s a terminal illness that’s fully recognized around the world as “progress.” But, its unrelenting disregard for the health of ecosystems and for workers’ rights makes it a serial killer.

The wonderful world of nature is not part of the neoliberal capitalistic formula for success. In fact, nature with its life-sourcing ecosystems is treated like an adversary or like one more prop to use and abuse on the way to infinite progress. Really?

The Report alerts to the dangers of a “business as usual world,” an epithet that is also found throughout climate change literature. These warnings of impending loss of ecosystems, and by extension survival of Homo sapiens, depict a biosphere on a hot seat never before seen throughout human history. In fact, there is no time in recorded history that compares to the dangers immediately ahead. The most common watchword used by scientists is “unprecedented.” The change happens so rapidly, so powerfully. It’s unprecedented.

Meanwhile, people are shielded from the complexities, and heartaches, of collapsing ecosystems in today’s world by the artificiality of living a life of steel, glass, wood, cement, as the surrounding world collapses in a virtual sea of untested chemicals.

In the end, humans are the last vertebrates on the planet to directly feel and experience the impact of climate change and ecosystems collapsing. All of the other vertebrates are first in line. Maybe that’s for the best.

Still, how many more 68% plunges in wild vertebrate populations can civilized society handle and remain sane and well fed?

Robert Hunziker, MA, economic history DePaul University, awarded membership in Pi Gamma Mu International Academic Honor Society in Social Sciences is a freelance writer and environmental journalist who has over 200 articles published, including several translated into foreign languages, appearing in over 50 journals, magazines, and sites worldwide.

23 September 2020

Source: countercurrents.org

By Peter Koenig

André, my good friend and comrade is no more.

We worked on several investigative projects together. André’s professional rigor, sharpness of understanding, vision and ability to connecting the dots is exemplary.

We shared some unforgettable moments, when we followed a refugee trail from Bodrum, Turkey, to the Greek Island of Kos in the Aegean Sea – onwards to Athens.

I’m deeply shocked and saddened beyond words by André’s sudden passing.

In the night from Monday to Tuesday 22 September, André traveled by chauffeur-driven car with his wife from Samsun on the Black Sea in Turkey to Istanbul. When they arrived in the early morning hours at the hotel and his wife wanted to wake him up, he didn’t react. He had passed away.

Turkish police said André’s death was “suspicious”. His body was immediately brought to a hospital for forensic analysis.

André traveled relentlessly from one battle field to another, from one conflict zone to a war zone. He exposed innumerable atrocities committed around the world, mostly by western powers. He never wavered from revealing the truth. From Afghanistan to Syria, Iraq, Iran, Sudan to Argentina, Chile, Peru to Hong Kong, to Xinjiang, the Uygur Autonomous Region of the People’s Republic of China – André was there. He reported on environmental crimes in Borneo, or originally called Kalimantan, Indonesia, where corruption is destroying vital rainforests – the lungs of Mother Earth – for the benefit of western corporations, killing wildlife and annihilating the livelihoods of indigenous people.

André stood always up for justice, in defense of the poor, for the persecuted, the oppressed – for those that by and large are considered non-people by the elitist Global North; the destitute, the refugees, political prisoners, those that disappear and wither away in the shadows. As an investigative journalist and geopolitical analyst, he fought Supremacist Might for Human Rights. André was a true Internationalist. He will be deeply missed.

May his soul rest in peace and his spirit live on.
—
Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst.

23 September 2020

Source: countercurrents.org

By Dr James M Dorsey

A close read of the agreement between the United Arab Emirates and Israel suggests that the Jewish state has won far more than diplomatic recognition. It won acknowledgement of its claim to historic Jewish rights. By the same token, the UAE has received a significant boost to project itself as a leader in inter-faith dialogue.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and United Arab Emirates Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed walked away from this month’s White House signing ceremony with more than just an agreement to establish diplomatic relations.

Included in the agreement are references that are key to foundational Israeli arguments asserting the right of the Jewish people to a state on what was once predominantly Arab land rather than simple recognition of the fact that the Jewish state exists.

Recognition of Jewish rights has long been a demand put forward by Mr. Netanyahu.

In talks with the Palestinians as well as the building of relations with Arab states over the years, the Israeli leader asserted that mere diplomatic acceptance of Israel’s existence was not good enough. And yet, that was the basis of earlier peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan as well as Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Yasser Arafat’s 1988 recognition of Israel and the subsequent 1993 Oslo accords.

From the outset, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been as much a dispute about control of land as one of perceived rights.

Recognition of Jewish rights in Palestine bolsters Israeli assertions that its claims to territory occupied during the 1967 Middle East are legitimate rather than a land grab resulting from military conquest.

To be clear, it does not by definition endorse annexation, but it constitutes Arab acceptance of Israel’s position that any compromise between Israelis and Palestinians, a sine qua non for a resolution of their dispute, would involve mediation of claims that are historically and morally on par.

Arabs in the past have projected solutions as the need to address Palestinian rights while accepting Israel’s existence.

The agreement did not explicitly recognize Jewish rights, but enabled Israel to interpret the deal as doing so by stating that “Arab and Jewish peoples are descendants of a common ancestor, Abraham.”

The text of the agreement suggests that the reference was primarily related to allow the UAE to boost its efforts to project itself as a leader of inter-faith dialogue and a moderate interpretation of Islam – a pillar of the country’s well-funded soft power campaign that paints the Emirates as a militarily capable, forward-looking, religiously tolerant and technologically savvy, cutting edge state.

The interpretation of the phrasing as recognition of Jewish rights may have been an unintended consequence or icing on Israel’s cake.

It was a bonus that David Makovsky of The Washington Institute for Near East Policy — widely viewed as leaning towards Israel — was quick to point out. Mr. Makovsky noted that the reference implied that “both (Arabs and Jews are) indigenous to the Middle East.”

Mr. Makovsky suggested that the phrasing “is important because it clearly refutes longstanding allegations in the Arab world that Zionism is alien to the region.”

It puts past to Arab and Palestinian arguments that the long-touted two-state solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was one of dividing up land claimed by two parties driven by facts on the ground rather than consideration of legal and moral claims.

This is not just of esoteric significance. It bolsters Israel’s long-standing rejection of Palestinian insistence on the right of refugees, including those who left during the 1948 war, to return to their homes and lands in what is now Israel.

Israel’s reading of the agreement as endorsement of its assertion that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is about equally valid rights is likely to be interpreted differently on both sides of Israel’s right-left divide.

The country’s weakened left will see it as highlighting the need for territorial compromise. Significant segments of the Israeli right will view it as validation of its belief dating back to the period prior to the 1948 creation of Israel that the clash of Jewish and Palestinian rights is irreconcilable. That is a view that has historically also resonated among elements of the labor movement.

That may be what makes the UAE-Israel deal truly historic.

The icing on the UAE’s cake, beyond the significant geopolitical, military, security, technological and economic benefits of the agreement, is the stress on inter-faith dialogue.

Under the agreement, the UAE and Israel “undertake to foster mutual understanding, respect, co-existence, and a culture of peace between their societies in the spirit of their common ancestor, Abraham, and the new era of peace and friendly relations ushered in by this Treaty, including by cultivating people-to-people programs, (and) interfaith dialogue…”

The UAE, like Saudi Arabia, one of its multiple autocratic religious soft power rivals, has gone in recent years to great lengths to cultivate ties to Jewish and Evangelist communities and to position itself as a sponsor of an inter-faith dialogue in which Islam is represented by Muslim scholars who preach absolute obedience to the ruler and reject endorsement of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Its an interpretation of the faith intended to ensure regime survival and counter allegations of violations of human rights in the UAE.

The signing of a Document on Human Fraternity by the imam of the Al-Azhar Grand Mosque in Cairo, Ahmed El-Tayeb, and Pope Francis I during his 2019 visit to the UAE, the first by a head of the Vatican to the Gulf, served to offer an alternative to the Universal Declaration that allows the Emirates to pick and choose which rights it accepts.

The emphasis on inter-faith dialogue is bolstered and conditioned by the agreement’s implicit condemnation of political Islam, a key driver of UAE policy that is shared by Israel.

The agreement rejects “political manipulation of religions and…interpretations made by religious groups who, in the course of history, have taken advantage of the power of religious sentiment…in a way that has nothing to do with the truth of religion.”

Omar Ghobash, UAE Assistant Minister for Culture and Public Diplomacy, speaking in a US-UAE Council webinar, noted that one driver for the conclusion of the agreement was “what happened around the so-called Arab Spring and then the rise of vicious groups like ISIS, let alone Al Qaeda.”

Mr. Ghobash was referring to the 2011 popular Arab revolts that toppled the autocratic leaders of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen as well as the rise of the Islamic State in the aftermath of the uprisings, which was a product of the 2003 US invasion of Iraq rather than the rebellions.

He projected the agreement as part of the UAE’s institutionalization of its values.

“There is a distortion that has taken place over the last few decades…represented by groups like the Muslim Brotherhood, groups like Al Qaeda and ISIS … There is a recurring theme in conversations with my leaders and that is that Islam has been hijacked by these groups. The reality is that in taking Islam back, you need to free it from those constraints. You free it by presenting a different expression of Islam,” Mr. Ghobash said.

Critics suggest that the agreement’s formalization of Israeli support for the UAE’s propagation of a state-controlled Islam fails to tackle a core issue: the need to address religious concepts that are either outdated or outmoded or require reconceptualization and reinterpretation.

Those concepts legitimized decades of Muslim demonization of Israel as well as Jews, Christians, and other non-Muslims.

The UAE took a first major step to address the issue by distributing to schools barely two weeks after the announcement of the establishment of diplomatic relations textbooks that cite the agreement with Israel as an expression of fundamental Islamic and Emirati values.

However, the ultimate litmus test of the UAE’s effort to shape moderate Islam will be if and when it loosens the state’s grip on religion and allows for free-flowing, credible theological debate in which scholars tackle problematic religious concepts that have served their purpose but are out of place in a modern, forward-looking society.

A podcast version of this story is available on Soundcloud, Itunes, Spotify, Stitcher, TuneIn, Spreaker, Pocket Casts, Tumblr, Podbean, Audecibel, Patreon and Castbox.

Dr. James M. Dorsey is an award-winning journalist and a senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.

23 September 2020

Source: countercurrents.org