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By Vidya Bhushan Rawat

Shujaat Bukhari, Editor of Rising Kashmir and a man of deep conviction, known through his fearless writings fell to the bullets of assassins today at the time when festive season of Eid is approaching after the culmination of the holy month of Ramadhan. Bukhari’s killing also shows us how difficult it is for the journalists of the Kashmiri origin particularly Muslims, to work in such a difficult circumstances as the militants would not like any Kashmiri to influence public opinion against them.

Shujaat Bukhari was among very few who welcomed open heartedly the announcement made by home minister Rajnath Singh even when a majority of those who matters in the valley did not support it. He wrote in his article two days back that though New Delhi can’t be trusted but we have to utilise these occasions. He called the halting of operations by the armed forces as a sane decision.

That the assassination took place in the holy period of Ramadhan shows the total contempt by those who are fighting the battle of kashmir in the name of Islam. It is very difficult for a Kashmiri journalist to work in such a situation where the entire atmosphere is against the Indian state for its monumental blunders that it has done in Kashmir and without showing any remorse for them. Rather, the government, it look, want to suggest that it can crush any movement on its military might. One does not know who are the advisors suggesting such silly approach to a very complex issue where people’s opinion is essential to come to a conclusion. Unfortunately, people dont matter for the government at the moment which has resulted in deep resentment against the government and all its agencies.

The Indian media has played havoc with Kashmir. Rather than providing a constructive criticism to government’s failed policies, it became RSS’s mouth piece and put every Kashmiri as suspect. The media which should have been putting healing touch to Kashmiris became the hatemongers of the VHP and Bajrang Dal variety. The saner voices lost. Most of the Kashmiri journalists whether editors or other journalists are also working for this ‘national’ media and it is a fact that they have to toe the line of these nationalists editors. We all know how the ruling party wanted to use Kashmir’s political issue to bolster its domestic political purposes. This made these journalist vulnerable to charges like puppets of Indian government and media. Their condition became worst as they were trying to report from the very difficult situation where a balance has to be made between people’s aspirations as well as the stated policy of India’s ‘official’ media which today has become Hindutva media. So, there was little option left for them.

In such a situation, Shujaat Bukhari continued to work unafraid and undeterred. He reported and wrote extensively. He was critical of Kashmiri leadership but also critical of New Delhi who cant be trusted for what it has done to Kashmir. The irony is that those who talked of peace and wanted the cease fire to happen became victim of the terror violence.

Shujaat Bukhari welcomed home minister’s announcement even when rest in the government were not keen or happy. The terrorist have actually silenced a voice who wanted peace to return to Kashmir. It is people like Shujaat Bukhari who were determined to work in such difficult circumstances when on the one side they have to face the wrath of the people and other side get suspected by the intelligence agencies for their reporting.

Shujaat Bukhari’s brutal killings have indicated that there are forces on both the side who dont want peace and negotiations but it is equally important for the government to continue with the peace process and political discussions in the valley. If the peace process is discontinued by this violence then those who oppose peace will win. Shujaat dedicated his life for the cause of peace and democracy but those who killed him have no faith in democratic values and peaceful solution. In the coming days, many other Kashmiri friends might face such threats if they speak up against the violence and talk of peace. Perhaps, the militants in the valley now feel that peace process would halt their ‘dream’ but it is here that the government of India should show maturity and extend the ceasefire and call for an inclusive democratic solutions to Kashmir problem. So far people dont believe the government as they feel it is just passing the time but if the government show sincerity, it will go a long long way.

We condemn the dastardly killing of Shujaat Bukhari and we hope the friends and colleagues who are working in Kashmir despite all the adverse circumstances will inspire from his sacrifices and will work for peace and stability in the region. Shujaat’s death is a huge loss for media fraternity as well as all those who stand for humanity and human rights.

We stand in solidarity with Kashmiri people in their effort to bring peace and justice in their society. Violence has no place in political negotiations. In fact, it endanger the whole peace process and create a artificial situation for all. Kashmir issue need to be addressed in all seriousness and government must be prepared for unconditional talks with all the stakeholders in the state. One hope that the people in Jammau and Kashmir would heed the sincere advise of Shujaat Bukhari. His death is an irreparable loss for all but we hope journalists will get inspired by his dedication despite all the grave threats to his life.

Vidya Bhushan Rawat is a social and human rights activist.

15 June 2018

Source: https://countercurrents.org/2018/06/15/shujaat-bukhari-another-voice-of-reason-silenced/

(June 16, 2018) – Respected Oxford University Professor and public intellectual Tariq Ramadan has been held in preventative detention in a French prison and denied bail following allegations of rape to which he vehemently denies.

Incarcerated for over four months, Tariq Ramadan has been denied appropriate treatment for a serious pre-existing medical condition and denied access to his full legal file.

French magistrates appeared to ignore the diagnoses of nine physicians that Professor Ramadan suffers from Multiple Sclerosis, including the chief prison medical authority, who confirmed that his state of health is not compatible with continued incarceration.

In response, a worldwide appeal of journalists, politicians, scholars and academics are speaking out in an open letter. Signatories include English author Karen Armstrong, Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor, UK filmmaker Ken Loach, Dr Amina Wadud from Berkeley, UK journalist Peter Oborne, Professor John Esposito from Georgetown University, scholar Hamza Yusuf, among many others.

“We wish to remind the country that affirmed the inalienability of human rights and equality, the importance of respecting principles that ensure the integrity of French justice.”

The letter also expresses deep concern with the inhuman treatment that Tariq Ramadan has been subject to at the hands of French justice.

The signatories conclude by asking, “We ask our French friends: should it truly come to this?

-End-

For media interviews: freetariqramadan@gmail.com

Defenders of Due Process for Tariq Ramadan (DDPTR) is an international coalition, calling for full respect of judicial norms and established procedures in the Tariq Ramadan case.

See the full letter and signatories below: 

 

OPEN LETTER: A WORLDWIDE APPEAL FOR DUE PROCESS FOR TARIQ RAMADAN

 A Worldwide Appeal for Due Process for Tariq Ramadan. After four months of pre-trial detention, Tariq Ramadan’s last appeal for bail has again been denied.

As scholars and politicians from around the world, we write to demand due process for Professor Tariq Ramadan, incarcerated since February 2nd in a French prison.

It is not for us to judge Tariq Ramadan’s guilt or innocence. We fully recognize the rights of the plaintiffs to have their case heard without prejudice and without injury to their honour. But we wish to remind the country that has affirmed the inalienability of human rights and equality of the importance of respect for the principles that ensure the integrity of French justice.

We ask: Why has Mr. Ramadan been denied bail at the preliminary investigative stage although he willingly came for questioning and has given all required guarantees?

Has Mr. Ramadan been granted the equal treatment so prized by France when high-ranking political figures accused of similar offenses continue to enjoy full freedom of movement?

Is there one form of justice for Muslims in France and another for everyone else?

What justifies solitary confinement, limited family visitation rights, the denial of access to his case file and thus to the necessary means of preparing his defense?

Can prosecutors selectively leak information with impunity? Is it standard procedure in France for high-ranking political figures to publicly denigrate someone awaiting a trial?

In short, we respectfully ask, has Mr. Ramadan benefitted from a fair and equitable legal process, one in which he is presumed innocent until proven guilty?

These are straightforward questions of equal justice. To them we add deep concern for the dignity and humane treatment of all prisoners.

French magistrates have appeared to ignore the diagnoses of nine physicians that Mr. Ramadan suffers from multiple sclerosis, including the chief prison medical authority, who confirmed that his state of health is not compatible with continued incarceration.

Even though Mr. Ramadan suffers from multiple sclerosis and further neurological complications, proper medical treatment has not been provided.

We understand that the defense has appealed to the European Court of Human Rights against undue suffering he has undergone at the hands of the French justice.

We ask our French friends: should it truly come to this?

We, the signatories of this letter, endorse France’s commitment to uphold the values of liberté, égalité et fraternité threatened today around the world.

We trust that your response to our appeal will prove these sentiments to be well placed.

 

 

 

SIGNATORIES

Prof Farid Hafez , Salzburg, Austria

Dr Malika Hamidi, Brussels, Belgium

Dr Yacob Mahi, Brussels, Belgium

Dr Ahmet Alibasic, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Dr Francirosy Campos Barbosa, Sao Paulo, Brazil

Dr Nadia Abu-Zahra, Ottawa, Canada

Charles Taylor, Montreal, Canada

Thomas Woodley, Montreal Canada

Houria Bouteldja, Paris, France

Ismahane Chouder, Paris, France

Dr Sonya Dayan- Herzbrun, Paris, France

Catherine Samary, Paris, France

Dr Hans-Christian Günther, Freiburg, Germany

Professor Dr Anwar Alam, New Delhi, India

Dr Javad Kashani, Tehran, Iran

Professor Mohammad Marandi, Tehran, Iran

Professor Abdulkarim Soroush, Iran

Dr Mohammed Hashas, Rome, Italy

Hamza Piccardo, Italy

Dr Mohammad Abdur Rahman Siddiqi, Tokyo, Japan

Dr Ahmad Sukkar, Beirut, Lebanon

Tengku Ahmad Hazri, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Anwar Ibrahim, Malaysia

Wan Azizah binti Wan Ismail, Malaysia

Professor Dr Mohammad Hashim Kamali, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Dr Ahmad Farouk Musa, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Dr Chandra Muzaffar, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Dr Paul Aarts, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Alexander Fluegel, The Hague, The Netherlands

Dr Ellen van de Bovenkamp, Leiden, The Netherlands

Dr Hamid Aminoddin Barra, Marawi City, The Philippines

Dr Mutaz Al Khatib, Doha, Qatar

Dr Mawahib Bakr, Doha, Qatar

Dr Mohammed Ghaly, Doha, Qatar

Professor Ray Jureidini, Doha, Qatar

Professor Emad El-Din Shahin, Doha, Qatar

Professor Farid Esack, Johannesburg, South Africa

Dr Quraysha Ismail Sooliman, Pretoria, South Africa

Jacques Neirynck, Switzerland

Dr Sami Al- Arian, Istanbul, Turkey

Professor Dr Arshin Adib-Moghaddam, London, UK

Dr Shabbir Akhtar, Oxford, UK

Dr Nadje Al-Ali, London, UK

Dr Arif Anis, London, UK

Dr Walter Armbrust, Oxford, UK

Karen Armstrong, London, UK

Professor Masooda Bano, Oxford, UK

Dr Fanny Bauer-Motti, London, UK

Professor Stephen Chan, London, UK

Dr Stephanie Cronin, Oxford, UK

Professor Robert Gombrich, Oxford, UK

Dr Bilal Hassam, Leeds, UK

Ken Loach, UK

Professor Kalypso Nicolaidis, Oxford, UK

Professor Jørgen S. Nielsen, Birmingham, UK

Dr Homa Katouzian, Oxford, UK

Tanya Cariina Newbury-Smith, Exeter, UK

Dr Ziba Mir-Hosseini, Cambridge, UK

Professor Tariq Modood, Bristol, UK

Professor Ian Neary, Oxford, UK

Peter Oborne, London, UK

Professor Eugene Rogan, Oxford, UK

Dr Behar Sadriu, London, UK

Omar Salha, London, UK

Professor Salman Sayyid, Leeds, UK

Dr Mustapha Sheikh, Leeds, UK

Professor Avi Shlaim, Oxford, UK

Professor Jan Zielonka, Oxford, UK

Dr Khaled Abu-El Fadl, Los Angeles, California, USA

Professor Asma Afsaruddin, Bloomington, Indiana, USA

Dr Ilham AlMahamid, Albany, New York, USA

Ijaz Arif, Roseville, California, USA

Abbas Barzegar, Atlanta, Georgia, USA

Dr Hatem Bazian, Berkeley, California, USA

Dr Jonathan Brown, Washington DC, USA

Dr Zahid Bukhari, Frederick, Maryland, USA

Dr Charles Butterworth, Maryland, USA

Salah Eddin Elbakri, Oakland, USA

Professor John Esposito, Washington DC, USA

Dr James H. Faghmous, Stanford, USA

Professor Marianne Farina, Berkeley, California, USA

Dr Alain Gabon, Virginia, USA

Professor Todd Green, Iowa, USA

Dr Ramon Grosfoguel, Berkeley, California, USA

Dr Abdullah bin Hamid Ali, California, USA

Dr Nader Hashemi, Denver, USA

Dr Altaf Husain, Washington, USA

Hussein Khatib, Minnesota, USA

Dalia Mogahed, Washington, USA

Dr Aasim Padela, Chicago, USA

Muslema Purmul, California, USA

Dr Yasir Qadhi, Memphis, TN, USA

Professor Robert Shedinger, Iowa, USA

Dr Ahmad Sheikh, Cape Girardeau, Missouri, USA

Dr Amina Wadud, Berkeley, California, USA

Hamza Yusuf, Berkeley, California, USA

By K P Fabian

Confounding his critics and an army of pundits who were confidently predicting an unsuccessful summit, President Trump has demonstrated that his deal-making approach can deliver results in an area where patient, plodding, conventional, hesitant diplomacy has signally failed.

Trump deserves all credit for the historic success of his summit with DPRK’s Chairman Kim Jung Un. Equally, Kim also deserves full credit. The Western media that had for long demonized him had wrongly speculated that the young Kim, 34, would not be able to hold his own while meeting Trump who can be intimidating.  Kim held his head high and Trump was at his charming best. It looked as though Trump had left his bad temper in Canada and he was so relieved to apply his mind to resolving the Korean conundrum which successive US presidents have signally failed to address or even understand holistically.

We shall first try to figure out, cutting through  the diplomatic jargon, what was agreed upon in Singapore, based on the signed joint statement and Trump’s subsequent press conference.

First, Washington and Pyongyang have agreed to put an end to the long chapter of hostility going back to the Korean War of 1950-53. That war marked the beginning of the Cold War. Though the Cold War collapsed definitively by demise of the USSR in 1990-91, the 76 million Koreans in the divided Korea have not stopped suffering from that war. The Trump-Kim decision is to embark on a path of normalization of their relations.

Second, the two sides will jointly work to build a ‘lasting and stable peace’ in the Korean peninsula. In short, there will be a peace treaty formally ending the Korean War replacing the armistice of 1953.

Third, Pyongyang reiterated its commitment contained in the April 27 Panmunjom declaration with Seoul to “work towards complete denuclearization” of the Korean peninsula.

Fourth, Pyongyang agreed to permit Washington to recover and take to US the mortal remains of US soldiers who died in the Korean War. About 6,000 families in US have been wanting to see the mortal remains of their loved ones.

Fifth, Pyongyang will destroy an important missile testing centre as a gesture of good will though this is not mentioned in the joint statement.

Sixth, US will stop military exercises that have in the past raised the level of tension.

Last but not the least is that both sides will start implementing what was agreed upon with a sense of dispatch and the two leaders will meet again.

Trump has been unfairly criticized by some media pundits who were looking for the words “complete, verifiable, and irreversible disarmament “a formula used by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo before the summit as one of the key demands of Washington. Any one conversant with the ground realities of international diplomacy would have known that any such demand put upfront would have been a non-starter. There is a fundamental misunderstanding that need to be cleared up here. The Western pundits who believe that Kim sought the summit mainly because he wanted to get rid of the asphyxiating sanctions have got it wrong. Of course, the sanctions do hurt in a big way. But, the primary reason for Kim’s move is that having concluded the missile and nuclear tests he has demonstrated his nuclear-weapon capability and he does not need to conduct more tests. Senator Diane Feinstein , a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has said that Pyongyang probably has 50 to 60 nuclear weapons and the missile capability to deliver a  war head in the US, perhaps not with much accuracy.

President Trump who tweeted for months abusing Kim by calling him ‘the little rocket man” did consider for a while military action against DPRK. Eventually, Defence Secretary Mattis and others convinced him of the danger of initiating hostilities risking the lives of 29,000 of US military personnel and of hundreds of thousands of the South Koreans living in Seoul so close to the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) within the range of DPRK’s artillery shells. Trump also has his eyes on a Nobel Peace Prize.

Trump’s critics who hark back to the 1994 agreement with DPRK that was aborted and argue on that basis that Kim cannot be trusted are woefully imprisoned in the past and are  unable to appreciate the realities of 2018.   The 1994 agreement was to stop DPRK’s use of reactors capable of producing plutonium and in exchange US was to supply fuel oil and to lift long standing sanctions though this was not specifically spelt out.  After the agreement was signed, President Clinton’s Democratic party lost control of the Senate and the Republicans stood in the way of Washington’s fulfilling its obligations.

There is another deplorable confusion of thought among some Western commentators. They always go into the past behavior of DPRK and try to extrapolate into its future behavior forgetting two crucial factors: DPRK is now a nuclear weapon state and Kim really wants to develop his country economically for which he badly needs good relations with US.

The behavior of Moscow and Beijing calls for a comment. For months, they obliged Trump   by agreeing to impose tighter and tighter sanctions. It was only when Kim smartly turned the tables on them by sending out a signal to Trump through President Moon of South Korea and Trump responded to that signal though with some delay that China and Russia realized that they had to get into the game. Kim responded cleverly by going to China twice to meet with President Xi Jinping  and accepting an invitation to go to Moscow from Foreign Minister Lavrov who came to Pyongyang. There is no doubt at all that Kim has played his hand skillfully.

Let us try to find out how South Korea, China, Russia, and Japan might look at the summit.   Obviously, President Moon of South Korea will be overjoyed as he, above all others, has worked the hardest to make the summit happen. His ‘sun-shine policy’ of seeking peace and cooperation with DPRK has  marked a milestone. At one time, Moon was supposed to be present in Singapore to have a meeting with Trump and Kim after they had met first. Secretary Pompeo is on his way to Seoul to brief President Moon.

China has an ambivalent approach to the whole problem. It does not want a crisis in DPRK that might cause a huge exodus of refugees to China. China is not too comfortable with a nuclear armed DPRK, but it also realizes that once the issue is resolved, US will cease to need China’s help in tackling DPRK. China, of course, does not want a unified Korea, but can be sure that Korean unification is far away. But, reinforced cooperation between Seoul and Pyongyang will reduce China’s hold on DPRK. If DPRK has normal trade with South Korea, obviously it will be less dependent on China economically. All told, China would like to see the issue remain unresolved provided it does not lead to a war between US and DPRK.

Russia shares some of China’s concerns, but on balance it would like to see peace and stability in the Korean peninsula.

Japan might be unhappy. Prime Minister Abe has till recently taken a hard line against DPRK, He has derived considerable political advantage by taking such a hard line that also in a way was used to justify his plan for amending the Constitution to permit Japan to have a normal military. But, as the momentum developed towards a Kim-Trump summit, Abe through Moon asked for a meeting with Kim before the Singapore summit, but for understandable reasons Kim did not oblige. Abe has highlighted the issue of 17 Japanese abducted, five of whom have been returned. Trump has declared that US would work with Japan.

Let us try to figure out what is in store. Of course, there is a non-zero probability that this Singapore agreement also can come a cropper. But, there is a higher probability that the Singapore summit will deliver as both sides want it to succeed. Trump does lack certain presidential qualities, but he is a successful chief executive officer who can apply his mind to problem with singular determination. He is no Hamlet like Obama to be paralyzed between ‘to be or not to be’.

The Nobel Committee should not rush to award any prize to Trump. It should watch the implementation for at least a year and then award the prize to Trump, Kim, and Moon.

Ambassador K. P. Fabian is an Indian Diplomat who served in the Indian Foreign Service between 1964 and 2000, during which time he was posted to Madagascar, Austria, Iran, Sri Lanka, Canada, Finland, Qatar and Italy.

13 June 2018

Source: https://countercurrents.org/2018/06/13/the-singapore-summit-a-good-beginning/

By Fadi Quran

Instead of bringing an end to the occupation, the current Palestinian leadership and its institutions have become a key component of it. Yet a new generation of leaders is slowly emerging. Their goal is to build a new framework for the Palestinian struggle that avoids the mistakes of the past and ensures that freedom is achieved in their lifetime. Their successful entrance into leadership will require both a reckoning with and breaking of a cycle that blocks change.

Looking at former and current Palestinian leadership, one can observe a cyclical trajectory in which members of the elite first acquire the legitimacy to lead through a combination of traditional structures and foreign support. The legitimacy of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Amin Al-Husseini, for example, was grounded in religious and familial authority and enhanced and institutionalised by the Ottoman Empire and then the British Mandate. Ahmed Shuqeiri’s legitimacy derived from the Arab League as well as his educational status and familial ties, while President Mahmoud Abbas’s legitimacy was founded on factional loyalties within Fatah and then significantly consolidated by the US and Israel.

These leaders and the institutions they administer fail to deliver on popular aspirations, leading to stagnation and public dissent. This precipitates an inter-Palestinian power struggle that is often intergenerational and highly destructive. The struggle ends when a national tragedy occurs that either destroys or unites the competing factions. During these historical moments of national chaos, a new generation of leaders rises, mesmerising the public and accruing revolutionary legitimacy that propels them to the top.

In each turn of this cycle, sitting leaders either adopt the new discourse and co-opt members of the new generation or maintain status via intervention by foreign sponsors who kill or arrest insurgents. An example of this dynamic is the death of Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam, and later the leaders of the 1936 Revolt, who were crushed with great brutality by the British. Yasser Arafat’s conquest of the PLO from Shuqeiri in the 1960s, in which Arafat incorporated members of the new generation, is another. Such transitions also occurred on the local level during the First Intifada, and with Hamas’s gradual takeover in Gaza during and after the Second Intifada.

The third phase of this cycle sees the rise of a technocratic class, a generation of leaders that attempts to rebuild or replace the institutions that were destroyed in the internal conflict. These leaders are or perceive themselves to be institution builders, and although they rarely reach the pinnacles of power, they are able to acquire significant authority. These builders can take many forms in their approach to reinvigorate society, from the revolutionary to the neoliberal. Examples include Khalil Al-Wazir, a key founder of Fatah who was pivotal in slowly rebuilding the national movement in Palestine after the PLO’s failures in Lebanon. He was assassinated by Israel in Tunisia for his role in laying the groundwork that launched the First Intifada. Another example is Salam Fayyad, who pursued a Western-backed neoliberal institution-building process in Palestine after the Second Intifada. Regardless of the political leanings of these builders, their efforts are often short-lived as they tend to clash with more deeply-rooted power structures. This phase of the cycle often closes with a return to the first phase, wherein a small set of elites, supported by outside forces, hold control.

Today, this cycle seems blocked. An ossified Palestinian leadership has managed to cling to power for more than two decades. The institutional framework established by the Oslo Accords – a Palestinian Authority (PA) without authority providing inadequate administrative services, low-level employment, and security for Israel – still governs a subset of Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. The PA has become a buffer zone between the Palestinians and the Israeli occupation, one that largely favours the occupation. Meanwhile, through heavy foreign assistance, the PA has transformed the socioeconomic landscape of Palestinian society by increasing inequality, widening political divisions, and even attempting to alter the media and educational landscape to weaken all forms of effective struggle against the occupation.

The results of these developments, combined with the deteriorating regional politics of the Middle East, has led the most astute observers of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to conclude that the Palestinian struggle for freedom is comatose.

But one need only look a bit deeper to see that something is stirring. A new generation of Palestinians is organising and growing in strength. They are waiting for the right moment to transform the status quo and create the momentum that will end the occupation. The Israeli security establishment, although it may not fully understand these dynamics, sees this coming. Why else would defence minister Avigdor Lieberman ban the Palestinian “Youth Movement” and put it on the terrorist list? In fact, there is no organisation or organised body called the “Youth Movement” on the ground in Palestine. Rather, the term Al-Hirak Al-Shababi is most commonly used to refer to any social or political action led by youth. What scares Lieberman so? Why does the Palestinian General Intelligence maintain a file on “youth-led activities?”

Over the past five years I have met and spoken with thousands of young Palestinians across the West Bank and Gaza Strip and in the diaspora. In every town, city, and refugee camp, youth groups are blossoming. Most focus on very local needs and lead volunteer work. They appear non-political and are not affiliated with any faction. These groups often fail, fall apart, and use what they have learned to try something new. Their growth is anything but linear, but their learning is exponential.

These groups’ driving questions are: What do we need to do to have a better life? What is our purpose? How do we achieve it? Having asked these questions, it is not long before they discover that the occupation and the PA as its governing body are obstacles in their path. This generation’s focus on grassroots action and its ability to conceptualise the PA as an impediment to a genuine liberation movement are fundamental to its potential to transform the stagnant Palestinian leadership model.

Further, many young people in Palestine are despondent about the status quo. This is clearest in Palestinian universities, which have been transformed from beacons of liberation to factories of disenchantment. Once hotbeds of Palestinian political struggle, the universities today produce young men and women focused on two things: a paying job or an opportunity to emigrate. One university dean I spoke with defined his job as simply training a workforce for the PA economy. Although youth groups are active on campuses, offering glimpses of hope, the Palestinian security forces in the West Bank and Hamas’s forces in Gaza have turned student politics and electioneering into a shadow of what they once were, ensuring that superficial slogans and fear override genuine student organising and hope.

However, despite these repressive policies, the new generation has not given up on its Palestinian identity or its dreams of freedom. Many are preparing to enter the struggle for freedom under the right leadership: one they can be part of and trust. This new generation of leaders, learning from the experiences of the past, have wisely chosen to work quietly, away from the spotlight, and patiently prepare for when the moment is ripe.

Identifying that moment, however, will be difficult because three stars need to align: a) Reigniting hope: The Palestinian street needs to go from being risk averse to being hopeful that a better future is possible; b) Overcoming the power threshold: The youth must feel they have the human resources and endurance to slog through the obstacles the PA and Israel can put in their way; c) Consolidating to confront the occupation: Given that the PA and its security apparatus are pivotal in maintaining the status quo, and that any more internal Palestinian strife is to be avoided, the youth will have to find a moment when the occupation has committed an act so severe that they can mobilise many of the ranks of the apparatus into the struggle against the occupation and away from internal repression. Of course, Israel and its backers will do their best to make sure these stars do not align, from killing hope to arresting dozens of youth activists. The only way for this moment to arise is for Palestinian civil society and youth activists to build their strength and expand societal self-awareness.

How will these young people avoid the mistakes of the past and break the cycle outlined above? For a new Palestinian leadership to be successful, a culture of transparency, accountability, and feedback must first be created at the local level. No matter how powerful, resilient, and disciplined a leader is, and no matter how much they love their country and people, they are human. It is only through developing a culture of accountability that a community can produce leaders that can move the struggle forward. While Palestine has had many leaders, none have maintained a culture around them that helped birth new leaders and ensured that they remain accountable. Creating this culture is not something done through legislation or rules alone, but is a daily practice.

Although there is not enough space here to flesh out the necessary practices in detail, some are fairly straightforward. For example, leaders at all levels of society, from volunteer groups to ministries, can work with their teams to put forward a clear vision for what they want to achieve, define each person’s responsibilities and specific outcomes, and ensure that leaders take ownership of their and their teams’ results. They should allow team members to provide feedback on the process in an open setting, such as in a weekly meeting when tasks are tallied and learning is discussed in a convivial manner.

In such a process, the group’s leader helps ensure that the team achieves its vision in a united, collaborative spirit. Eventually, this ensures that everyone in the group is a leader because leadership is not couched as a zero-sum process.

The process may not always work perfectly, but the lessons learned are valuable, including lessons about how one’s ego can get in the way of achieving team goals. Most importantly, the youth participants become aware of a method of teamwork and leadership that transcends what they see in local politics. Though it may sound cliché, it is nonetheless true that nothing is more impactful than leading by example and learning through experimentation.

These self-aware leaders and their culture of transformative leadership will clash with the socioeconomic environment and political elite established and strengthened by international players and Israel. Such a people’s-based leadership, whether directly or indirectly, will be the target of massive co-optation and, if that fails, assassination. One can argue that Israel’s “mowing the grass” in Gaza and the PA’s assault on student and youth politics are pre-emptively attempting to destroy rising leaders.

While some argue that a top-down approach to reform will fix the leadership problems – by restructuring the PLO, gaining representation, and holding elections, among other strategies – the current socioeconomic dynamics, reality of occupation, and international intervention in Palestinian politics make these efforts at internal reform easy targets for political manipulation. It is authentic change at the local level that can fix the problem from its roots and bring about a lasting leadership transformation for Palestinian society. If this generation succeeds, it will not only liberate the nation, but will ensure that the future beyond liberation is more beautiful than many of us today can imagine.

* Fadi Quran is a Senior Campaigner at Avaaz and a Popular Struggle community organiser.

8 June 2018

Source: http://www.amec.org.za/palestine/item/1565-upending-the-palestinian-leadership-the-role-of-youth.html

By Eric Zuesse

Now that the United States (with the cooperation of its NATO partners) has turned the former Soviet Union’s states other than Russia into NATO allies, and has likewise turned the Soviet Union’s Warsaw Pact allies into America’s own military allies in NATO, the United States is finally turning the screws directly against Russia itself, by, in effect, challenging Russia to defend its ally Syria. The U.S. is warning Syria’s Government that Syrian land, which is occupied by the U.S. and by the anti-Government forces that the U.S. protects in Syria, is no longer really Syria’s land. The U.S. is saying that there will be direct war between Syria’s armed forces and America’s armed forces if Syria tries to restore its control over that land. Tacitly, America’s message in this to Moscow is: now is the time for you to quit defending Syria’s Government, because, if you don’t — if you come to Syria’s defense as Syria tries to kill those occupying forces (including the U.S. troops and advisors who are occupying Syria) — then you (Russia) will be at war against the United States, even though the U.S. is clearly the invader, and Russia (as Syria’s ally) is clearly the defender.

Peter Korzun, my colleague at the Strategic Culture Foundation, headlined on May 29th, “US State Department Tells Syria What It Can and Can’t Do on Its Own Soil” and he opened:

“The US State Department has warned Syria against launching an offensive against terrorist positions in southern Syria. The statement claims that the American military will respond if Syrian forces launch an operation aimed at restoring the legitimate government’s control over the rebel-held areas, including the territory in southwestern Syria between Daraa and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Washington is issuing orders to a nation whose leadership never invited America in in the first place! The very idea that another country would tell the internationally recognized Syrian government that it cannot take steps to establish control over parts of its own national territory is odd and preposterous by any measure.”

The pro-Government side calls those “terrorist positions,” but the U.S.-and-allied side, the invaders, call them “freedom fighters” (even though the U.S. side has long been led by Al Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate and has increasingly been relying upon anti-Arabic Kurds). But whatever they are, the United States has no legal authority to tell Syria’s Government what to do or not do on Syrian land.

Russia’s basic position, at least ever since Vladimir Putin came into power in 2000, is that every nation’s sovereignty over its own land is the essential foundation-stone upon which democracy has even a possibility to exist — without that, a land cannot even possibly be a democracy. The U.S. Government is now directly challenging that basic principle, and moreover is doing so over parts of the sovereign territory of Syria, an ally of Russia, which largely depends upon Russia to help it defeat the tens of thousands of invading and occupying forces.

If Russia allows the U.S. to take over — either directly or via the U.S. Government’s Al Qaeda-linked or its anti-Arab Kurdish proxy forces — portions of Syrian territory, then Russia’s leader, Vladimir Putin, will be seen as being today’s version of Britain’s leader Neville Chamberlain, famous, as Wikipedia puts it, for “his signing of the Munich Agreement in 1938, conceding the German-speaking Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia to Germany.”

So: Putin will now be faced with either knuckling under now, or else standing on basic international democratic principles, especially the principle that each nation’s sovereignty is sacrosanct and is the sole foundation upon which democracy is even possible to exist or to evolve into being.

However, this matter is far from being the only way in which the U.S. Government now is challenging Russia to World War III. On May 30th, the Turkish newspaper Yeni Safak bannered “US trains armed groups at Tanf base for new terror corridor” and reported that:

New terror organizations are being established by the U.S. at the Tanf military base in southern Syria that is run by Washington, where a number of armed groups are being trained in order to be used as a pretext to justify U.S. presence in the war-torn country. …

Military training is being conducted for “moderate” opposition groups in al-Tanf, where both the U.S. and UK have bases.

These groups are made up of structures that have been established through U.S. financing and have not been accepted under the umbrella of opposition groups approved by Turkey and the FSA.

From Deir Ezzor to Haifa

Claiming to be “training the opposition” in Tanf, the U.S. is training operation militants under perception of being “at an equal distance to all groups.”

Apart from the so-called opposition that is linked to al-Qaeda, Daesh [ISIS] terrorists brought from Raqqa, western Deir Ezzor and the Golan Heights are being trained in the Tanf camp. …

The plan is to transport Iraqi oil to the Haifa [Israel] Port on the Mediterranean through Deir Ezzor and Tanf.

Actually, Deir Ezzor is also the capital of Syria’s own oil-producing region, and so this action by the United States is more than about merely a transit-route for Iraq’s oil to reach Israel; it is also (and very much) about America attempting theft of oil from Syrian land.

Furthermore, on May 23rd, Joe Gould at Defense News headlined “House rejects limit on new nuclear warhead” and he reported that the U.S. House, in fulfillment of the Trump Administration’s Nuclear Posture Review, which seeks to lower the threshold for nuclear war so as to expand the types of circumstances in which the U.S. will “go nuclear,” rejected, by a vote of 226 to 188, a Democratic Party supported measure opposing lowering of the nuclear threshold. President Trump wants to be allowed to lower the threshold for using nuclear weapons in a conflict. The new, smaller, nuclear warheads, a “W76-2 variant,” have 43% the yield of the bomb that the U.S. dropped on Hiroshima, but it’s called a ‘tactical nuclear weapon’ meaning that it is supposedly intended for use in ‘conventional’ wars, so that it is actually designed to eliminate altogether the previous meta-strategic principle, of “Mutually Assured Destruction” pertaining to nuclear war (that nuclear weapons are justifiable only in order to prevent another World War, never in order to win such a war) that successfully prevented nuclear war till now — that once a side has introduced nuclear weapons into a military conflict, it has started a nuclear war and is challenging any opponent to either go nuclear itself or else surrender — America’s new meta-strategic doctrine (since 2006) is “Nuclear Primacy”: winning a nuclear war. (See this and this.)

U.S. President Trump is now pushing to the limit, presumably in the confident expectation that as the U.S. President, he can safely grab any territory he wishes, and steal any oil or other natural resource that he wishes, anywhere he wants — regardless of what the Russian Government, or anyone else, thinks or wants.

Though his words often contradict that, this is now clearly what he is, in fact, doing (or trying to do), and the current U.S. House of Representatives, at least, is saying yes to this, as constituting American values and policies, now.

Trump — not in words but in facts — is “betting the house” on this.

Moreover, as I headlined on May 26th at Strategic Culture, “Credible Report Alleges US Relocates ISIS from Syria and Iraq into Russia via Afghanistan.” Trump is apparently  trying to use these terrorists as — again like the U.S. used them in Afghanistan in order to weaken the Soviet Union — so as to weaken Russia, but this time is even trying to infiltrate them into Russia itself.

Even Adolf Hitler, prior to WW II, didn’t lunge for Britain’s jugular. It’s difficult to think of a nation’s leader who has been this bold. I confess that I can’t.

—————

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of  They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of  CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.

9 June 2018

Source: https://countercurrents.org/2018/06/09/u-s-challenges-russia-to-nuclear-war/

By Whitney Webb

According to the UN, the number of Yemenis in danger of starving to death would rise from the current figure of 8.4 million to 18.4 million by this December. That’s three times the estimated death toll of Jews killed during the Holocaust.

29 May 2018 – During a briefing last Friday, the UN warned that millions more Yemeni civilians are expected to starve to death before year’s end as a result of a blockade imposed on the country by the Saudi Arabia-led coalition. The Saudis’ unsuccessful bid to quash the Houthi-led resistance movement against Western and Saudi imperialism in Yemen has already claimed the lives of thousands of civilians and transformed the country into the world’s worst humanitarian crisis since the war began in 2015.

Mark Lowcock, the UN’s emergency relief coordinator, expressed his concern regarding the “recent decline of commercial food imports through the Red Sea ports” — adding that, if conditions do not improve, the number of Yemenis at the brink of starvation would rise from the current figure of 8.4 million to 18.4 million by this December. Given that there are approximately 28 million people in Yemen, a continuation of the Saudi-led blockade would mean that nearly two-thirds of the entire country’s population will soon face starvation.

The U.N.’s warning of a growing famine in Yemen comes during the holy month of Ramadan, when the first revelation of the Quran is celebrated by Muslims through fasting. Given the number of Yemenis facing starvation, many Yemeni Muslims will be without food to break their fast.

While the coalition — composed of Saudi Arabia and the UAE, with support from other Gulf monarchies and Western governments — has publicly claimed that it has lifted the blockade after international pressure, the coalition’s “ship inspections” continue to prevent critical supplies – such as food, fuel and medicine – from entering the most populated portions of the country, which remain under Houthi control.

Lowcock stated that the “lifting” of the blockade has had little impact on the crisis, noting that imports are “well short of pre-blockade averages” and are insufficient to prevent the mass starvation of Yemeni civilians. In addition, the blockade has prevented sufficient medicine from entering the country — allowing the worst cholera epidemic in recent history to ravage Yemen, even though cholera is easily treated with inexpensive medication.

The UN’s dire warning regarding the situation in Yemen, undoubtedly the worst humanitarian crisis in the world, comes just as the Saudi-led coalition, with support from the United States and the United Kingdom, is preparing for an assault on the key Yemeni port of Hodeidah. On Monday, a coalition spokesman announced that its forces were within 20 km from the Houthi-held port, which has long been a key coalition target. The UN and other groups have long warned that any assault on Hodeidah would drastically worsen the crisis and greatly increase the number of Yemenis facing starvation.

According to Reuters, tens of thousands of Yemenis have been fleeing the port city in recent days, as fighting in the area intensifies. It remains unclear exactly when coalition forces will attempt to take the city and whether such an operation has been approved by its Western backers, such as the United States, which has continued to supply the coalition with arms and munitions despite its well-documented tendency to target civilian infrastructure.

Beyond the blockade: targeting food production and waging total war

While the blame for the brunt of the crisis has been placed on the coalition’s blockade on the imports of food, fuel and medicine, the coalition has also deliberately targeted the country’s food production and distribution infrastructure. In just the first year of the conflict, the coalition bombed over 350 farms, markets, and other agricultural infrastructure, which had a grave impact given that only 2.8 percent of Yemen’s land is arable. Fisherman have also been heavily targeted over the course of the conflict, with more than 250 fishing boats damaged or destroyed and 152 killed by coalition ships and helicopters as of last December.

The targeting of the country’s food production infrastructure by the coalition continues unabated. Just last Wednesday, coalition planes bombed a series of mango farms in the Hodeidah province, killing at least six and injuring three – all of whom were engaged in harvesting the fruit at the time, according to local reports.

The fact that the coalition continues to deliberately target civilian infrastructure, particularly its ability to produce food domestically amidst the blockade, suggests that the coalition is intentionally targeting Yemeni civilians in an attempt to gain an upper-hand against the Houthis.

Indeed, despite being significantly better equipped and enjoying the support of Western militaries, the Saudi-led coalition has been unable to make significant progress against the Houthi militia. For instance, recent military operations conducted by the Houthi and allied groups have resulted in Yemeni resistance groups taking control of over 100 miles of Saudi territory and successfully raiding the Saudi military for equipment and ammunition.

Thus, the coalition’s inability to win militarily against the Houthis over three years since the war began suggests that they are deliberately targeting civilians to offset their lack of military progress, adopting a “total war” strategy that is set to end in the genocide of a majority of the nation’s population.

Whitney Webb is a MintPress contributor who has written for several news organizations in both English and Spanish; her stories have been featured on ZeroHedge, the Anti-Media, 21st Century Wire, and True Activist among others – she currently resides in Southern Chile.

11 June 2018

Source: https://www.transcend.org/tms/2018/06/un-warns-10-million-more-yemenis-expected-to-starve-to-death-by-end-of-year/

By Jeremy Corbyn

5 Jun 2018 – I have asked for this statement to be read out at this evening’s Right of Return demonstration in London for justice for the Palestinian people:

In recent weeks, scores of unarmed Palestinian civilians have been killed in Gaza by Israeli forces. Hundreds have been wounded. Most are refugees or the families of refugees from what is now Israel, and they have been demonstrating for their right to return, week after week.

The killing of Razzan Najjar, the 22 year old medical volunteer shot by an Israeli sniper in Gaza on Friday, is the latest tragic reminder of the outrageous and indiscriminate brutality being meted out, under orders from the Netanyahu government.

The silence, or worse support, for this flagrant illegality, from many western governments, including our own, has been shameful.

Instead of standing by while these shocking killings and abuses take place, they should take a lead from Israeli peace and justice campaigners: to demand an end to the multiple abuses of human and political rights Palestinians face on a daily basis, the 11-year siege of Gaza, the continuing 50-year occupation of Palestinian territory and the ongoing expansion of illegal settlements.

President Trump’s decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital city, and move the US embassy there, in violation of international agreements, has demonstrated that the US has no claim to be any kind of honest broker for a political settlement of the Israel-Palestine conflict.

A sustainable, just peace between Israelis and Palestinians, that recognises the rights and security of all, and puts an end to the continuing dispossession of the Palestinian people, is an interest we all share, in the Middle East and far beyond.

We cannot turn a blind eye to these repeated and dangerous breaches of international law. The security of one will never be achieved at the expense of the other. And that is why we are committed to reviewing UK arms sales to Israel while these violations continue.

The UK Government’s decision not to support either a UN Commission of Inquiry into the shocking scale of killings of civilian protesters in Gaza, or the more recent UN resolution condemning indiscriminate Israeli use of force – and calling for the protection of Palestinians – is morally indefensible.

Britain, which is a permanent UN security council member and has a particular responsibility for a peaceful and just resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict, should ensure there is a credible independent investigation, genuine accountability and effective international action to halt the killings – and bring Gaza’s ever-deepening humanitarian crisis to an end.

Go to Original – Jeremy Corbyn Facebook

11 June 2018

Source: https://www.transcend.org/tms/2018/06/the-west-is-turning-a-blind-eye-to-the-gaza-massacre/

By Rima Najjar

Chris Hayes’ incredulous tweet on the killing of Palestinian paramedic Razan al-Najjar in Gaza is being echoed everywhere it seems on social media.Hayes hosts All In with Chris Hayes, a weekday news and opinion television show on MSNBC.

On June 7, 2018 he tweeted:

“The wording of that [Israel Defense Forces] IDF video is so bizarre. Hamas “incited” a woman to…provide medical care to the wounded? That’s incitement?”

I wish to God it were only the wording that is bizarre in this latest chapter of the Palestinians’ long-running tragedy since the ungodly arrival of the Zionist Jewish state of Israel among them.

To decry the killing of Razan al-Najjar on the basis that she was unarmed and did not pose a threat, as some are provoked to do by the IDF tripe at which Hayes marvels, plays right into Israel’s “narrative” of defense rather than the reality of the aggression it needs to continue to exist as the exclusionist colonial-apartheid polity it is.

It means you cannot state that an armed Palestinian resisting the IDF who is then killed by them is also an unjustified killing.

Apologists and propagandists who try to justifyRazan al-Najjar’s killing are the same as those who justify Israel’s violent existence as a Jewish state in Palestine against the will of its indigenous people.

Israel’s repression of Palestinians is never justified. To Israel, such repression is standard operating procedure — because we exist and because we are not Jews. The exact circumstances are irrelevant hogwash.

The fact is that the mere existence of Palestinians is a threat to Israel — a so-called demographic threat. By and large, Israel justifies any and all resistance to its settler-colonial presence in the Arab world by pointing to its security and the sanctity of its non-existent borders.

Our existential threat to them is their justification for killing us — i.e., we don’t need to be armed to be killed or shoved into prison or ethnically cleansed. All we have to do is exist and procreate in a spot needed to build housing for Israel’s Jewish population.

They can and have been justifying their unconscionable actions against us through denial and deflection, turning the tables on us and feigning empathy where necessary, as described in the Al-Jazeera video clip [2:33 minutes]:How Israeli Propaganda Works: The Luntz Document/ Al-Jazeera.

‘If you want to understand how the propaganda works you need to read the Luntz document — “The key, [Frank] Luntz says, is the claim that the fight is over ideology, not land. About terror [Islamist terror in the form of Hamas, Iran or Hezbollah], and not territory.”’

Israel never fails to crank up its PR Machine whenever it fails to work as it is meant to do:

Groping for a convenient solution to its public relations problems, the Israeli government has turned to hasbara. The literal meaning of this Hebrew word is “explanation,” but when put into practice, most informed observers recognize it as propaganda. The more the State of Israel relies on force to manage the occupation, the more it feels compelled to deploy hasbara. And the more Western media consumers encounter hasbara, the more likely they are to measure Israel’s grandiose talking points against the routine and petty violence, shocking acts of humiliation and repression that define its treatment of the Palestinians.

And it isn’t just the 1967 occupation that is the problem with Israel for Palestinians; it is the whole racist and cruel Zionist idea of a settler-colonial Jewish state in Palestine dominating the Arab world in general.

As Steven Salaita writes:

Many of the people who defend Israel are consciously racist (clearly), but others dehumanize Arabs and Muslims by reproducing unexamined assumptions about Israel’s moral or civilizational superiority.

Beyond racism (Arabophobia), lies and deflection, there is Israel’s classic justification for its very existence as a settler-colonial Zionist Jewish state in Palestine, namely the “liberation” of the Jewish people. This central Zionist fabrication has long gained Israel impunity on the Western international front:

Writing in The Electronic Intifada, Ilan Pappe says, in ‘Finding the truth amid Israel’s lies’:

… [Palestinian] children were considered as part of the enemy, who had to be cleansed for the sake of a Jewish state or as Carmel put it — a day after he finished his Galilee tour — for the sake of liberation.
[ Moshe Carmel is the author of Northern Campaigns — first published in 1949, in which he describes the events of the Nakba thus: “Great sadness and suffering flooded the roads — convoy upon convoy of refugees making their way [to the Lebanese border’]]
,… Revisiting them [such books as Carmel’s], 70 years on, reveals an elementary truth: it would have been possible to write the “new history” of 1948 [i.e., a history of ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, colonization and Jewish Zionist usurpation by European Jews] without a single new declassified document, but only if these open sources, as I call them, had been read with non-Zionist lenses.

The crimes perpetrated during the Nakba and Israel’s ongoing crimes today are callous and unconscionable and equally unbearable for us Palestinians. They are connected by a thread no hasbara in the world can break.

In the first instance (the Nakba), we have a violent ethnic cleansing perpetrated against a mostly agrarian population in Palestine, whose aftermath is still with us today in the shape of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, six million Palestinian exiles and refugees and, of course an Apartheid, Zionist, Jewish state, armed to the teeth, including with nuclear weapons.

In the second instance (Israel’s ongoing crimes today), we have a beautiful young woman (21), a paramedic wearing a uniform that identified her as such, fatally shot while evacuating and tending to the wounded east of Khan Younes.

In describing her funeral, Haaretzrefers to Razan’s “hometown of Khuza’a” in the Gaza Strip, rather than her true hometown of Salama, five km east of Jaffa, now documented by Visualizing Palestine in their updated infographic “Short Walk Home, Long Walk to Freedom”.

If you deny Razan’s fundamental human right to return to her hometown and call her protest a “riot”, if you believe that the existence of a Jewish state in Palestine trumps all else, no matter the price Palestinians must pay in dispossession and exile, then, like US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, you can justify all violence against Palestinians by pointing to Israel’s security and simply debating how much violence is “justified” when pushing protesting Palestinians back into their camps (over 70% of the Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip are refugees). If a little violence doesn’t work, then by all means, use deadly violence:

Friedman said experts had told him tear gas, water cannons and other nonlethal means of crowd dispersal would not have been effective during the weeks of riots… “If what happens isn’t right, what is right? What do you use instead of bullets?” he asked rhetorically.’

Standard practice is to lie glibly about the Great March of Return, as this Fox news outlet does:

The Gaza protests are being organized by the territory’s militant Hamas leadership and are aimed at drawing attention to the decade-long Israeli-Egyptian blockade on the territory. The protesters are also demanding the “right of return” for Palestinian refugees from the 1948 war and their descendants.

Note how the Palestinian inalienable and internationally recognized right of return is in quotation marks. Note that the blockade is mentioned with no reference to the horrible conditions it has engendered in the Gaza Strip. But most of all, note how “militant Hamas leadership” are said to have organized the protests, when it is, in fact,

a grassroots movement calling for the right of return of Palestinian refugees to their homes, as per UN Resolution 194, from which they were expelled in 1948 when the state of Israel was created.

As Toufic Haddad, activist, academic and author of Palestine Ltd: Neoliberalism and Nationalism in the Occupied Territory, says in an interview, Hamas’ decision to abstain from governance opened the path

for popular forces, and particularly a younger generation of activists, to take the initiative and see what could be done to change the situation.

The tragedy, as Shane Wesbrockcomments on a post by Steve Salaita on Facebook, is that subliminal hasbara “justification” of Razan’s and all IDF killing is pervasive even on entertainment media outlets in the U.S.:

I just finished reading about Razan al-Najjar last evening and decided to watch some Netflix to redirect. I open up the page and there is a big advertisement for a “Netflix Original” where the Israeli hero is hunting the evil Palestinian “terrorist.” Talk about superior narratives! Its bloody invasive, not to mention aptly timed.

Israel and its Western allies want the whole world to celebrate Israel’s achievements as they define them and to hide its devastating failures and its crimes against humanity [yes, Palestinians are human]. Their advocates get angry when they realize that Palestinians will not lie still under the Zionist yoke — not 70 years hence, not a million years hence.

Because the Zionist cause is unjust and racist, Israel and its spokespeople can “justify” only through lies and deflections.

Rima Najjar is a Palestinian whose father’s side of the family comes from the forcibly depopulated village of Lifta on the western outskirts of Jerusalem.

11 June 2018

Source: https://countercurrents.org/2018/06/11/israel-and-its-spokespeople-can-justify-only-through-lies-and-deflections/

By Peter Koenig

Background

The war of words has intensified between the U-S and G-7 allies after President Donald Trump retracted his endorsement of the communiqué of the once-united group.

The German chancellor called Trump’s abrupt revocation of support for a joint communiqué sobering and depressing. Angela Merkel however said that’s not the end. France also accused Trump of destroying trust and acting inconsistently. Trump pulled the U-S out of the group’s summit statement after Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the imposition of retaliatory tariffs on the U-S. The White House said Canada risked making the U-S president look weak ahead of his summit with the North Korean leader. But, Canada’s Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland later reiterated that her country will retaliate against U-S tariffs in a measured and reciprocal way.

PressTV:

What do you make of Mr. Trump’s decision to renege on the G7’s final statement?

PK:

Trump pulling out from the final G7 statement is just show; the usual Trump show. He signed it, then he pulled out. We have seen it with the Iran Nuclear Deal, with the North Korea meeting, on and off, with the tariffs – first – about two months ago – the tariffs were on for Europe, Mexico and Canada, as well as China – then they were off for all of them – and now they are on again…

How serious can that be? – Trump just wants to make sure that he calls the shots. And he does. As everybody gets nervous and talks about retaliation – instead of practicing the “politics of silence” strategy.

In the case of Europe, the tariffs, or the equivalent of sanctions, as Mr. Putin recently so aptly put it, may well serve as a means of blackmailing Europe, for example, to disregard as Trump did, the Iran Nuclear Deal, “step out of it – and we will relieve you from the tariffs.”

In the case of Canada and Mexico, it’s to make sure Americans realize that he, Mr. Trump, wants to make America Great again and provide jobs for Americans. – These tariffs alone will not create one single job. But they create an illusion and that – he thinks – will help Republicans in the up-coming Mid-term Elections.

In China – tariffs are perhaps thought as punishment for President Xi’s advising President Kim Jong-Un ahead of the June 12 summit – and probably and more likely to discredit the Yuan as a world reserve currency, since the Chinese currency is gradually replacing the dollar in the world’s reserve coffers. But Trump knows that these tariffs are meaningless for China, as China has a huge trade surplus with the US – and an easy replacement market – like – all of Asia.

PressTV:

How could the silence strategy by the 6 G7-partners have any impact on Trump’s decision on tariffs?

PK:

Well, the G6 – they are already now considered the G6+1, since Trump at the very onset of the summit announced that he was considering pulling out of the G7. – So, the remaining 6 partners could get together alone and decide quietly what counter measures they want to take, then announce it in a joint communiqué to the media.

It does not have to be retaliation with reciprocal tariffs, it could for example be – pulling out of NATO – would they dare? – That would get the world’s attention. That might be a much smarter chess move than copying the draw of one peon with the draw of another one. Because we are actually talking here about a mega-geopolitical chess game.

What we are actually witnessing is a slow but rapidly increasing disintegration of the West.

Let’s not forget, the G7 is a self-appointed Group of the “so-called” world’s greatest powers. – How can that be when the only “eastern power”, Russia, and for that – much more powerful than, for example, Canada or Italy, has been excluded in 2014 from the then G8?

And when the world’s largest economic power – measured by the real economic indicator, namely purchasing power parity – China – has never been considered being part of the G-Group of the greatest?

It is obvious that this Group is not sustainable.

We have to see whatever Trump does, as the result of some invisible forces behind the scene that direct him. Trump is a convenient patsy for them, and he plays his role quite well. He confuses, creates chaos – and on top of it, he, so far single handedly wants to re-integrate Russia in the G-7 – i.e. the remaking of the G-8.
So far the G6’s are all against it. Oddly, because it’s precisely the European Union that is now seeking closer ties with Russia. – Maybe because they want to have Russia all for themselves?

If that is Trump’s strategy to pull Europe and Russia together, and thereby creating a chasm between Russia and China – then he may succeed. Because the final prize of this Trump-directed mega political chess game – is China.

Trump, or his handlers, know very well that they cannot conquer China as a close ally of Russia. So, the separation is one of the chess moves towards check-mate. But probably both Presidents Putin and Xi are well aware of it.

In fact, the SCO just finished their summit in China’s Qingdao on 9 June, about at the same time as the G7 in Canada’s Charlevoix, Quebec Province, and it was once more very clear that this alliance of the 8 SCO members is getting stronger – and Iran is going to be part of it. Therefore, a separation of Russia from the Association is virtually impossible. We are talking about half the world’s population and an economic strength of about one third of the world’s GDP, way exceeding the one of the G7 in terms of purchasing power.

This, I think is the Big Picture we have to see in these glorious G7 summits.

Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst.

11 June 2018

Source: https://countercurrents.org/2018/06/11/g7-vs-g61-the-war-of-words/