Archives: Articles

By Andrea Germanos

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has proposed a plan to encircle his entire country with a fence as protection against “wild beasts,” referring to those in neighboring Arab states.

He made the comments Tuesday while visiting an 18-mile stretch of fence already under construction on the Israel-Jordan border.

“At the end of the day, in the State of Israel as I see it, there will be a fence like this one surrounding its entirety,” he said, according to a statement on the Prime Minister’s website.

“They tell me: Is this what you want to do, defend the villa? The answer is yes. What, are we going to surround the entire State of Israel with a fence, a barrier? The answer is yes, unequivocally. In the environment in which we live we must defend ourselves from the wild beasts.”

He added that it would be a multi-year project, multi-million dollar project.

“Perhaps the most notorious of Israel’s walls built for ‘security purposes’ runs within the occupied West Bank,” as Al Jazeera reports. It was deemed illegal by the International Court of Justice in 2004.

Haaretz columnist Asher Schechter argues that “Israel is already not even trying to function like a democracy,” and writes that Netanyahu’s statement is “a display of everything wrong with Israel under his leadership. Israel circa 2016 is fearful, hateful, and paranoid, self-involved to a degree even Donald Trump would find distasteful, and soon it might have big walls surrounding it from every which way, quarantining it, and a political system where only Jews need apply.

On Wednesday Netanyahu also spoke to the Israeli parliament and referred to the existing fence along the border with Egypt, saying that it prevented Israel from being “overrun” with migrants.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

11 February, 2016
Commondreams.org

By Uri Avnery

IT IS not easy to be an Arab in Israel.

It is not easy to be a woman in Arab society.

It is not easy to be an Arab in Israeli politics.

And even less easy to be an Arab woman in the Knesset.

Haneen Zuabi is all these together. Perhaps because of this she wears a perpetual smile – the smile of somebody who has won, after all.

It can be very annoying, this smile. Annoying and provocative.

These days, Zuabi has achieved something no Arab woman in Israel ever dreamed of: the whole country is talking about her. Not for an hour, nor for a day, but for weeks on end.

The vast majority of Jewish Israelis hate her guts. Zuabi’s smile is triumphant.

HANEEN BELONGS to a large Hamula (extended family) that dominates several villages near Nazareth. Two Zuabis were members of the Knesset in its early days – one was a vassal of the (then) ruling Zionist Labor Party, the other a member of the left-wing Zionist Mapam party. It was he who coined the memorable phrase: “My country is at war with my people!”

Haneen Zuabi is a member of the Balad (“homeland”) party, an Arab nationalist party founded by Azmi Bishara, an Israeli-Palestinian intellectual. Bishara was an admirer of Gamal Abd-al-Nasser and his pan-Arab vision. When the Shin-Bet was about to arrest him on some pretext or other, he fled the country, asserting that because of a severe kidney disease, prison would endanger his life.

He left behind a three-man Knesset faction, one of three Arab factions of similar size. All of them were a constant irritation to their Jewish colleagues, so they invented a remedy. A new law was enacted denying Knesset membership to any party that did not gain enough votes for a four-member faction. (A larger minimum could have endangered the Orthodox Jewish party.)

The logic was simple: the three small Arab factions hated each other’s guts. One was Communist (with one Jewish member), one Islamist and one nationalist (Balad).

But lo and behold, under threat of annihilation even Arabs can unite. They formed a “Joint List” (“Joint”, not “United”) and together gained 13 seats – three more than before. They are now the third largest faction in the Knesset, right after Likud and Labor, an eyesore to many of their colleagues.

 

THIS IS the background of the latest outrage.

For months now, Israel has been in the throes of a mini-intifada. In the two former intifadas, “terrorists” acted in groups under the orders of organizations, which were easily infiltrated. This time, individuals act alone, or together with cousins who could be trusted, without any prior signs. The Israeli forces (army, police, Shin Bet) have no information whatsoever and are therefore unable to prevent these acts.

Moreover, many of today’s “terrorists” are children – boys and girls who just pick up a knife in their mother’s kitchen and, on the spur of the moment, run out and attack the nearest Israeli. Some of them are 13, 14 years old. Some of the girls wield scissors. All of them know that in all probability they will be shot dead on the spot by soldiers or passing armed civilians.

The preferred victims are soldiers or settlers. Lacking these, they attack any Israeli, man or woman, in sight.

The mighty Israeli security forces are admittedly helpless against this kind of “infantifada” (as my friend Reuven Wimmer calls it). In their distress, the security forces do what they always do in such situations: use methods that have already failed many times.

Apart from summary executions on the spot (justified or unjustified, these methods include the demolition of the family’s home, to deter others, as well as the arrest of parents and other family members.

Frankly, I detest these measures. They remind me of a Nazi term I remember from my youth: “Sippenhaft” (“kin liability”. It is barbaric. It is also highly ineffective. A boy who has decided to sacrifice his life for his people is not deterred by such things. Not a single piece of contrary evidence has ever been produced. On the contrary, it stands to reason that such barbaric acts increase hatred and provide motivation for more attacks.

BUT THE most atrocious and stupid measure is the withholding of dead bodies. I am almost too ashamed to bring this up.

After almost any “terrorist” act, the body of the perpetrator – adult or child – is picked up by the security forces. Under Muslim law and usage, dead bodies must be buried the same day or the next one. Withholding them is a supreme act of cruelty. Our security services believe that this contributes to prevention. For Muslims, this is a supreme act of sacrilege.

This is the background of the latest scandal. The three Balad members of the Arab faction visited the families of the perpetrators of a “terrorist outrage”, whose bodies had been withheld. Their version is that they came to discuss how to retrieve the bodies. The security forces insist that they also expressed their condolences and even stood in silence for a minute.

The Knesset, “from wall to wall”, was outraged. How dare they? Extolling murderers? Showing sympathy for their families?

The Balad members of the Joint Faction are, apart from Zuabi and her smile, Bassal Gatas, and Gamal Zahalka. I have never met Gatas personally. He is 60 years old, a Christian Arab, a doctor of engineering and a businessman. He was for a long time a member of the Communist Party but was thrown out when he insisted on his right to criticize the Soviet Union. Azmi Bishara is his cousin. On TV, he makes a very sensible impression.

I consider Gamal Zahalka a personal friend. Once we both attended a conference in Italy and undertook some hikes together with our wives. I like him very much.

The three Balad members were banned from the Knesset for several months, except for the right to participate in Knesset votes (a right that cannot be denied). Now a new bill proposes that the Knesset can, by a majority of three fourths, expel members from the Knesset altogether.

This means that – unless the Supreme Court declares this bill unconstitutional – the Knesset will soon be Araber-rein, free from Arabs. A purely Jewish Knesset for a purely Jewish state.

THIS WOULD be a disaster for Israel.

Every fifth Israeli is an Arab. The Arab minority in Israel is one of the largest national minorities, per capita, in the world. Pushing such a minority out of the political process will weaken the very structure of the state.

When the state came into being, we believed that after a generation or two the gulf between the two communities would close, or nearly so. The opposite has happened.

In the early years, political cooperation between Jews and Arabs in a joint peace-camp was strong and getting stronger. These days are long past. The gulf has widened.

There was – and is – an opposite trend, too. Many Arabs are integrated in important professions, such as medicine. The last time I was hospitalized, I could not guess if the chief doctor of my department was Jewish or Arab. I had to ask my (Arab) male nurse, who confirmed that the very gentle doctor was Arab. I have found that Arab medical personnel are generally gentler than Jewish ones.

In several professions, Arabs are more or less integrated. But the general trend is the opposite. Where once there were cordial relations between neighborhoods, or between political organizations, contacts have loosened or disappeared altogether.

There were times when my friends and I visited Arab towns and villages almost every week. Not anymore.

This is not altogether an one-sided process. Insulted and rejected for so long, Arab citizens have lost the appetite for cooperation. Some of them have become more Islamist. The happenings in the Occupied Territories affect them deeply. A third and fourth generation of Israeli Arab citizens is becoming more proud and self-reliant. They are very disappointed by the failures of the Jewish peace movements.

To throw the Arab members out of the Knesset is, as a French politician once famously said, “This is worse than a crime – it is a mistake!”

It would cut the ties between the Israeli state and more than 20% of its citizens. Some Israelis may dream of evicting the Arabs altogether from the historical country – all six million of them in Israel proper, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip – but that is a pipedream. The world in which this was once possible does not exist any more.

What is possible, and indeed already exists, is a creeping apartheid. It is already the reality in the West bank and East Jerusalem, and – as this episode shows – it is becoming the reality in Israel proper, too.

The hysteria that has engulfed the country after the “visit to the ‘terrorists’ families” has touched the Labor party, and even Meretz, too.

I am putting “terrorists” in quotation marks because they are terrorists only to the Jews. For Arabs they are heroes, shaheeds, Muslims who sacrifice their lives to “testify” to the greatness of Allah.

The question is, of course, what is the job of an Arab MK? To upset the Jews? Or to narrow the gap and convince Israelis that Israeli-Palestinian peace is both possible and worthwhile.

I am afraid that Zuabi’s smile does not help with the second aim.
IF ANYTHING, this affair has reinforced the arguments for the Two State. Let each of the two states have a parliament of its own, where they can commit all the stupidities they want, and a serious joint Coordination Council, where serious decisions can be taken.

Henry Barkey’s piece entitled “Erdogan’s Foreign Policy Is in Ruins” is a good read. The title speaks for itself.
As Barkey points out in the beginning, “Turkish foreign policy was the talk of the town” a few years back. “Turkey aimed to both improve relations with its neighborhood and slowly emerge as the dominant regional power. It was a classic case of enhancing soft power through democratization and economic reforms at home, coupled with shrewd diplomacy aimed at establishing Ankara as a mediator in the region’s conflicts.”
In his view, this foreign policy is in ruins today, mostly due to the “unpredictable turnabout in the Arab Spring” and “miscalculations in domestic and foreign policy.” And he lays the responsibility for this dramatic change of fortunes clearly at President’s Erdogan’s door. “President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s grandiose ideas of his role in the world, his desire to transform Turkey into a strong presidential system, and the collapse of the Kurdish peace process, itself a casualty of the Syrian crisis, all have contributed to damaging Ankara’s once-promising foreign policy.”
Barkey concludes with an unforgiving judgment: “Turkish foreign policy is no longer about Turkey but about Erdogan. Floundering at home and abroad, the Turkish president has embarked on an illiberal course at home undermining what are admittedly flawed institutions and reconstituting them in his image. His omnipresence and unchallenged position mean that foreign policy is the product of his worldview, whims, and preferences.” And this is quite a familiar slippery road and pitfall: so many leaders before him have simply – and miserably – failed in pursuing personal whims and preferences instead of more common-sensical national interests of their own countries.

******
Erdogan’s Foreign Policy Is in Ruins
BY HENRI J. BARKEY | FEBRUARY 4, 2016

It wasn’t long ago that Turkish foreign policy was the talk of the town. Defined by the catchy phrase of “zero problems with the neighbors,” Turkey aimed to both improve relations with its neighborhood and slowly emerge as the dominant regional power. It was a classic case of enhancing soft power through democratization and economic reforms at home, coupled with shrewd diplomacy aimed at establishing Ankara as a mediator in the region’s conflicts.

This policy lies in ruins today. It is the victim of the unpredictable turnabout in the Arab Spring, especially in Syria; hubris; and miscalculations in domestic and foreign policy. With the exception of the Kurdistan Regional Government in northern Iraq, Turkey’s relations with almost all of its neighbors have soured. At the same time, tensions with the United States, European Union, and Russia have all dramatically increased. If Ankara has any sway today, it is mostly because of its geography — which gives it proximity to Syria and the refugee calamity — and its willingness to use strong-arm tactics in diplomatic transactions.

So how did Turkey’s international ambitions fall apart? It’s a question with multiple answers. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s grandiose ideas of his role in the world, his desire to transform Turkey into a strong presidential system, and the collapse of the Kurdish peace process, itself a casualty of the Syrian crisis, all have contributed to damaging Ankara’s once-promising foreign policy.

Turkey and the Arab Spring

Even before the Arab Spring, there were signs that Turkish foreign policy was faltering. In 2009, after almost seven years of conservative rule, Turkey’s accomplishments were noteworthy: rapid economic growth, the transformation of Istanbul into an international hub, democratization at home, and the domestication of the powerful military establishment. Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) went from electoral victory to electoral victory, as ordinary citizens were seduced by his accomplishments and turned off by a hapless opposition.

Having consolidated his position at home, especially after the 2007 elections, Erdogan became more of a risk-taker. He initiated a calculated public showdown with Israeli President Shimon Peres at the 2009 World Economic Forum, in which he angrily castigated Israel’s policy in Gaza, which threw relations between the two countries into a tailspin. However, it also paid off tremendous dividends in the Arab world, as Erdogan and Turkey’s popularity skyrocketed, and Arabs flocked to Turkey for tourism and in search of investment opportunities. This was followed by a pro-AKP Turkish NGO’s decision to charter a boat and sail to challenge the Israeli blockade of Gaza and the disastrous Israeli response, which ended with the deaths of nine Turks and saw relations with Israel collapse further.

The advent of the Arab Spring also pushed the United States and Turkey to work together closely. They appeared to synchronize their public statements on Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in an effort to push him out and later worked together on supplying arms and supplies to the Free Syrian Army. Turkey once again emerged as a regional model country that had successfully married Islam and democracy in the person of Erdogan and his AKP. As early as 2010, Obama declared Turkey to be a “great Muslim democracy” and “a critically important model for other Muslim countries in the region”; in 2012, he even named Erdogan among the top five leaders with whom he had forged a close relationship.

Turkey, however, wanted to be more than a model. The rise in Egypt, Tunisia, and Syria of the Muslim Brotherhood, with which the AKP leadership had had close relations, opened the possibility of an active role for Ankara as the movement’s most powerful regional ally. The Arab Spring in effect allowed for the Turkish leadership to imagine itself as the region’s leading power: As then-Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu put it, Turkey “will lead the winds of change in the Middle East … not just as a friend but as a country which is seen as one articulating the ideas of change and of the new order.”

Turkey’s moment had arrived. But it wouldn’t last long: Davutoglu’s hoped-for “new order” was dealt a setback when Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood-led government was overthrown by a combination of public protests and the army, and Erdogan’s relations with the new military-led regime disintegrated rapidly. But it was in Syria, where Bashar al-Assad’s regime stubbornly persisted in the face of an insurgency that Turkey helped support, where Turkish foreign-policy objectives were ultimately upended.

How Syria changed everything

Before the 2011 uprising, Syria had been the ultimate successful example of Turkey’s “zero problems” foreign policy. Soon after the AKP’s rise to power, Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad and Erdogan established a close working and even personal relationship. This was a remarkable turnabout, considering that in 1998, Turkey threatened Syria militarily due to its support of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which was then waging an insurgency against the Turkish state. Erdogan helped launch indirect negotiations between Israel and Syria, and went on to support the Baathist regime against a U.N. effort, led by the United States and France, to pressure Syrian troops to leave Lebanon.

When the peaceful protests started in Syria, Erdogan at first maneuvered to prevent Assad from succumbing to the same fate as the Egyptian and Tunisian leaders. He counseled Assad to introduce reforms — in fact, he reportedly suggested that these did not have to be very profound — but to no avail. As Assad gave a free rein to his military to crush the protests, Erdogan turned on his former ally and friend.

A number of factors contributed to Erdogan’s decision: anger that Assad would not heed his counsel, the common perception that Assad would not survive anyway, the belief that he could shape the new Syria, and finally the dramatic escalation of violence during the holy month of Ramadan in 2011 on what Erdogan saw as Sunni protestors. He called for Assad’s removal and publicly proclaimed that the Syrian dictator had only months left in power. Soon, he said in September 2012, “we will be going to Damascus and pray freely with our brothers at the Ummayad Mosque.”

Assad, however, would not fall so easily. The divergence between Erdogan’s wishes to see Assad replaced by a friendly Sunni-based alliance and the reality of the Syrian dictator’s stubborn hold on power frustrated the Turkish leader and pushed him toward a go-it-alone policy. Deep splits started to emerge with the United States, as Erdogan expressed disappointment in Obama’s unwillingness to enter the fray despite massive civilian casualties at the hand of regime forces.

Erdogan’s break with Assad also heralded the beginning of a sectarian Sunni policy that became more pronounced as the Syrian regime endured. Turkey’s policy of encouraging foreign fighters to flow across its border into northern Syria has also helped radicalize the opposition and has raised tensions with Ankara’s U.S. and European partners. The Turkish government knew that many of these foreign fighters would join jihadi militias, such as the al Qaeda-affiliated al-Nusra Front, but allowed them to do so because the homegrown “moderate” rebels had proved unsuccessful in bringing about the demise of the Assad regime. Jihadi fighters, some of whom were battle-hardened and more willing to die for the cause, would presumably complete the task that other Syrian rebels could not.

The unintended consequences of tens of thousands of foreign fighters converging on Syria soon became apparent. Many of the foreign fighters gravitated toward the Islamic State, helping it become the power it is today. In May 2013, during a visit to Washington, Obama urged Erdogan to stop supporting jihadi elements, specifically al-Nusra Front, and prevent their access through the Turkish border. But by then, a jihadi infrastructure within Turkey had materialized that bedevils Turkish security officials to this day.

The prime beneficiary of the loose border controls has been the Islamic State. The infrastructure in Turkey that developed to support the jihadis would ultimately be used to strike against Turkish towns, starting with Diyarbakir, Suruc, Ankara, and lastly Istanbul. The first three bombings targeted Kurds and leftists, leaving more than 135 dead, and the last attack in Istanbul’s tourism district killed 11 German tourists. The Islamic State has also executed its Syrian opponents inside Turkey with impunity and set up exchanges for Syrians and others to ransom their loved ones held by the Islamic State on Turkish soil.

The Kurdish Question

The empowerment of the Syrian Kurds has been the most important consequence of Syria’s spiral into chaos. Disenfranchised and repressed by successive Syrian regimes, the Kurds were able to take advantage of the country’s fracturing to lay claim to territory where they constituted a majority. They soon found a powerful ally in the United States: When the Islamic State advanced on the Kurdish-held town of Kobani in October 2014, the U.S. Air Force pounded the jihadi group, launching an extraordinary and successful relationship that has proved to be the most successful effort at dislodging the Islamic State from territory it has conquered.

But this deepening alliance came at the expense of the Turkish government. The dominant Syrian Kurdish movement, the Democratic Union Party (PYD), is a close ally if not a subsidiary organization of the PKK, which trained and nurtured it, making it into a formidable fighting force. Washington has made it clear that it distinguishes between the PKK and the PYD, despite the umbilical relationship between these two organizations. From a legal perspective, while the PKK is on the U.S. terrorism list, the PYD is not — and has been the recipient of American military support in its war against the Islamic State. As the United States has deepened its relationship with the PYD, Washington’s only concession to Ankara has been to give in to Turkish ultimatums not to invite the PYD to participate in recent Syria peace talks in Geneva.

In retrospect, the Syrian Kurds’ victory in Kobani proved to be the deathblow for Turkey’s domestic peace process with its Kurdish population. At the time, Erdogan was harshly critical of the American intervention in Kobani as he and his party perceive the PYD to be a greater scourge than the Islamic State. In February 2015, he repudiated the agreement his lieutenants had negotiated with the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party and the PKK. New documents suggest that the breaking point was his fear that Syrian Kurds would duplicate the Iraqi Kurdish experiment of creating an autonomous region on Turkey’s southern border.

By last summer, the war by and against the PKK at home had resumed with a vengeance. Since the June 7 election, some 256 security personnel have been killed; the casualties on the side of the PKK, while harder to pin down, have also been high. The destruction in Kurdish towns such as Silopi, Cizre, and the Sur district of Diyarbakir, where Turkish tanks have fired on homes and the youth wing of the PKK has decided to put up stiff resistance, has also been devastating.

Erdogan correctly understood that the Kobani siege represented a possible turning point for the Kurds’ fortunes in the region. He had two choices, co-optation or suppression. He chose the latter.

Even as the Kurds undermined Erdogan’s domestic and international position, the Turkish president found his hands tied even further in Syria by the Russian intervention on behalf of Assad. In a careless move, Turkish fighters in November 2015 shot down a Russian bomber that had briefly intruded into Turkish airspace, an action that triggered a rash of costly economic, political, and military actions in retaliation by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Erdogan had misjudged Putin: The shoot-down was born in the frustrations emanating from his failures in Syria and from watching the Russians and Iranians succeed in bolstering the much-battered Syrian army against Turkey’s allies in the country.

The ripple effects from Syria have put Turkey at odds with Iran. From the beginning of the Syrian conflict until the end of 2015, when the Russians intervened directly and the role of Iran’s Quds Force became more obvious, Turkey and Iran had agreed to disagree on this issue. The extensive business ties between Erdogan’s government, including large-scale gold sales, Turkey’s dependence on Iranian gas, and Iran’s need for the foreign exchange revenues created by these exports have helped the two countries avoid a public shouting match. This is in the process of changing because the confluence of forces on the ground has turned the tide in favor of Assad.

Erdogan has not given up on his dream of Turkish influence in the region. Ankara recently announced that Turkey would open up a naval base in Qatar and set up training facilities in Somalia. When convenient, the Turkish president also has proved capable of altering his policies at a moment’s notice — most recently by warming relations with Israel. A rapprochement with Jerusalem opens the lucrative possibility of constructing gas pipelines from the eastern Mediterranean fields through Cyprus to Turkey.

What’s next for Erdogan

Erdogan faces three interlinked challenges. He is relentlessly pursuing a constitutional change that would allow him to centralize executive powers in the presidency, allowing him to run the country unconstrained by its institutions; the escalating conflict with the Kurds threatens to lead to their complete break with the Turkish state; and the deterioration of the Syrian situation promises not only to exacerbate the Kurdish conflict at home but also weaken relations with the United States, as Washington strengthens its ties with the Syrian Kurds.

Erdogan may well get his way on some of these issues — particularly the creation of a presidential system — but the price will be even greater divisions within Turkish society, and between Turkey and its traditional allies. Erdogan is confident that his approach toward the Kurds is succeeding and is banking on the disillusionment of some in the Kurdish community, especially the more pious elements, to turn on the PKK. In the meantime, however, the suffering in Kurdish-majority cities is likely to have an indelible impact on the Kurdish community. Changing international conditions, primarily in Iraq and Syria, suggest that a military victory now may turn out to be a Pyrrhic one.

As for Syria, there is clearly a major divergence in priorities between Turkey and the United States and Europe. For Turkey’s Western partners, the No. 1 priority is to defeat the Islamic State — whereas in Ankara, the overthrow of the Assad regime and the prevention of a Kurdish autonomous region in Syria are the overriding concerns. The continuation of the Kurdish strife at home will further push Ankara away from its allies on Syria.

The crux of the matter is this: Turkish foreign policy is no longer about Turkey but about Erdogan. Floundering at home and abroad, the Turkish president has embarked on an illiberal course at home undermining what are admittedly flawed institutions and reconstituting them in his image. His omnipresence and unchallenged position mean that foreign policy is the product of his worldview, whims, and preferences. There is no one who can challenge him. The systematic approach of the early years has given way to indulgence; this more than anything explains the ups and downs of Turkish foreign policy.

Henri J. Barkey is the director of the Middle East Program at the Woodrow Wilson Center.

Erdogan’s Foreign Policy Is in Ruins

By Thomas Gaist

A United Nations arbitrator suspended international negotiations over the war in Syria on Wednesday. New talks have been scheduled to begin in three weeks.

According to UN Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura, the cancellation of the talks was immediately prompted by the advance of Russian-backed Syrian government forces into key areas surrounding the city of Aleppo, breaking a three-year-old “rebel” siege of two Shia villages and cutting a supply line for the US-backed Islamist militias from Turkey.

Mistura said that the continuing fighting on the ground and the lack of progress after two days of talks had convinced him of the need for “preparatory work” by the “stakeholders.”

“I’m not prepared to have talks for the sake of talks,” de Mistura said.

The official purpose of the now-suspended talks was to reach terms for an end to the war and for a political transition process that would install a new and US-approved leadership in power.

The prospect of any settlement appears increasingly distant as fighting continues to escalate on the ground. Russia’s deployment of advanced fighter planes has, in fact, enabled the government to win a series of successes against the US-backed “rebel” militias, including the seizure of strategic areas in central and northern provinces.

The anti-Assad forces have been rolled back along several fronts through joint military actions involving Russian air forces and military advisors, in support of government ground forces and pro-Assad militias as well as Hezbollah fighters from neighboring Lebanon. The Obama administration strategy of relying on proxy militias, composed of fighters who are essentially mercenaries, has left the “Syrian revolution” vulnerable to the government offensive waged with close air support from Russian planes over the past four months.

The cancellation of the talks has produced a redoubled chorus of demands for Assad’s removal and bitter denunciations against Russian involvement.

“How can you … enter negotiations when you have unprecedented military pressure?” an unnamed “senior Western diplomat” told Reuters. “The Russians and regime want to push the opposition out of Geneva,” he said.

According to the narrative advanced by the corporate media, Russia’s military campaign is the main obstacle to a political deal that could end the war. In reality, it is the unswerving determination of the US and European ruling elites to remove Assad, a close ally of Russia, that is fueling a dynamic that leads squarely toward further escalation in Syria and direct confrontation between the major powers.

Throughout the “peace process,” the US and NATO have continued to escalate their military and covert operations in Syria, deploying Special Operations troops, building up conventional forces and war planes in neighboring Turkey and Jordan, and increasing their support for an array of Al Qaeda-linked and mercenary militias, including the same forces that are directly targeted by Russia’s air war.

Russia’s moves in Syria, essentially defensive in nature, are calculated to improve the bargaining position of Russia’s ruling oligarchy and its state apparatus in relation to imperialism. Moscow cannot accept the removal of such a critical ally, and has already signaled its own commitment to greater military support for Damascus.

A postwar Syria that is completely dominated by the US and NATO would deny Russia access to its strategic naval base on the Mediterranean, a strategic objective of Washington as it seeks the military encirclement and ultimate dismemberment of the Russian Federation.

Nonetheless, Moscow has already signaled its readiness to press forward with its operations, responding to the false start in Geneva by insisting that it will continue its offensive.

Russia’s top diplomat said Wednesday that the campaign will proceed until it has defeated the al Nusra Front, Al Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate, which is one of the largest armed groups challenging the Syrian government and one of the main beneficiaries of the arms and funding funneled in by the US and its regional allies, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

“Russian strikes will not cease until we really defeat terrorist organizations like Jabhat al-Nusra,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said. “I don’t see why these air strikes should be stopped.”

US Army General Sean MacFarland told the media on Monday that ISIS is “beginning to demonstrate conventional warfare capabilities in places like Syria, Iraq and Yemen,” and has become “really more of a conventional force.”

In response, the US military is preparing to assist the Iraqi state to conduct larger and more sophisticated war operations, involving the full complement of modern heavy weaponry.

“We have shifted from a pure counterinsurgency focus and are now preparing the [Iraqi government forces] to conduct combined arms operations,” MacFarland said, speaking from Iraq.

“The ability to integrate infantry, armor, artillery, air power, engineers and other assets on the battlefield, provides the Iraqis with a decisive advantage over a static enemy dug in behind complex obstacle belts,” he said.

04 February, 2016
WSWS.org

By Jerry White

General Motors announced yesterday that it made a record $11 billion in pre-tax profits in 2015. The Detroit-based auto giant, the third largest auto company in the world, made $6.3 billion in profits in the fourth quarter alone, beating Wall Street expectations.

Once again, GM made the bulk of its income from its North American manufacturing operations, where the corporation’s decades long cost cutting campaign, carried out with the full backing of the United Auto Workers, was accelerated during and after the 2009 restructuring of the company by the Obama administration.

GM had a North American profit margin of 10.3 percent, reaching its 10 percent goal a year early and surpassing the margins at its joint ventures in China. This was accomplished through the UAW-enforced exploitation of workers, which includes relentless speedup, forced overtime and poverty level wages to a new generation of workers who cannot afford the cars they build. On the same day it reported its profits, a skilled trades worker fell to his death at a GM plant in Defiance, Ohio.

The world economic crisis led to a lowering of profits for GM in China and substantial losses in South America and Europe. The car company has shut plants and eliminated the jobs of thousands of production and white-collar workers in Brazil and Germany, along with Russia, where it is ending manufacturing operations.

Record US car sales were spurred by pent up demand following the 2008 crash, falling fuel prices and low car loan rates. This pushed up GM’s revenue, particularly from highly profitable pickup trucks and SUVs. Big investors, however, anticipate that the boom in car sales will dry up in 2016 and lead to falling profit margins. This led to a sell-off of GM stock Wednesday, driving shares down 2.5 percent and 13 percent over the past year.

“We understand we are in a cyclical business, and it’s very difficult for anyone to predict a downturn,” CEO Mary Barra told investors in a conference call Wednesday, “but we will maximize earnings through the cycle.” She said the automaker expects to cut operating costs by $5.5 billion by 2018 and hand over $16 billion to shareholders in dividends and share buybacks over that period.

The government restructuring of GM in 2009 and the relentless UAW-backed attack on the jobs, wages, health benefits and pensions of autoworkers was designed to guarantee a steady flow of cash to big investors under virtually any market conditions. A large portion of workers’ income is based on “profit-sharing,” which can be sharply reduced in a downturn. The UAW has also given the company a free hand to slash jobs and close plants in response to “market conditions.”

Last fall, the UAW pushed through a new four-year contract on GM’s 49,600 hourly workers in the US, over mass opposition. The contract, like similar deals at Fiat Chrylser and Ford, maintains the two-tier wage and benefit system, expands the use of low-paid temporary workers, imposes first time co-payments on older workers for health benefits and holds overall labor cost increases below the rate of inflation.

While the company is paying out billions to its richest investors, residents in Flint, Michigan—the birthplace of GM—have been poisoned by lead, largely due to decades of toxins the automaker dumped into the Flint River. While state and local officials ignored resident complaints about the taste, color and odor of the tainted water, in December 2014 GM quietly stopped using the river-supplied water at its local engine plant because of corrosion to its parts. The company’s employee drinking fountains and ice machines, however, continued to use the poisoned water.

While Flint needs a massive marshaling of resources to address the irreparable damage done to children and other residents by the neurotoxins, the $80 million the Obama administration has committed to Flint amounts to less than three days of GM’s profits last year.

GM’s record profits follow similar announcements by Ford and Fiat Chrysler (FCA) last week. Ford made $7.4 billion in 2015, including $1.9 billion in the fourth quarter. FCA reported a profit of $410 million for 2015, a decrease from 2014 because of higher recall and investment costs.

During its earnings call, FCA CEO Sergio Marchionne told investors that the company would end production of its smaller and less profitable Dodge Dart and Chrysler 200 models and concentrate on larger vehicles. Marchionne said FCA might “partner” with other automakers to continue selling smaller cars. In the new labor agreements, the UAW sanctioned the shifting of small car production to lower wage plants in Mexico, while pledging to reopen local contracts and impose “competitive” agreements to continue small car production at US plants.

The enormous profit making at GM is an expression of the corporate-government-union conspiracy against the working class and the domination of the financial aristocracy over virtually every aspect of life in the US.

In 2009, the Obama administration essentially handed GM and Chrysler to Wall Street “turnaround” specialists. Last year, hedge fund manager Harry Wilson, a former member of Obama’s Auto Task Force, pressured the GM board to hand over $5.7 billion to shareholders, including $3.5 billion in stock buybacks and $2.2 billion worth of dividend payments. GM has now told investors it would expand a stock repurchase program from $5 billion to $9 billion through the end of 2017. The payout was hailed by the UAW, which owns the largest block of GM shares.

While these financial parasites are reaping vast fortunes, the company has left a trail of devastation behind it—not only for autoworkers and their families, but hundreds of car-buyers who were killed or injured due to defective ignition switches.

During the 2009 restructuring, the Obama administration essentially immunized the company and its richest stockholders from the consequences of the criminal decisions of its top executives. The Treasury Department broke up the company into two entities—an “old” GM, which was responsible for the bulk of the company’s liabilities stemming from lawsuits over defective parts and pollution caused by GM factories, and a “new” GM, which could funnel profits to big investors with as few deductions as possible.

Last year, the Obama administration hit GM with a wrist-slap fine of $900 million for the defective ignition switch scandal and no top executives involved in the cover-up have been prosecuted.

The mass struggles of autoworkers, including the Flint sit-down strikes in the 1930s that established the UAW, led to a significant increase in living standards for workers, and by 1960 Flint had one of the highest per capita incomes in America. The transformation of the “Vehicle City” into one of the poorest cities in the nation was the product of the betrayals by the UAW, which, starting in the late 1970s, suppressed any resistance by workers to plant closings, layoffs and wage cutting in the name of boosting the international “competitiveness” and profitability of the US automakers.

05 February, 2016
WSWS.org

By Andre Vltchek

Friends and Comrades, it is a great honor to be standing here – at the Chamber of Deputies of the Italian Parliament.

***

One year ago I was driving through the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon, monitoring the situation in the refugee camps there. Winter was approaching and the mountains on the Lebanese–Syrian border were covered by snow. It was cold, very cold.

Some 20 minutes, after leaving Baalbek, I spotted an extremely humble makeshift refugee camp, growing literally from the road, in the middle of nowhere.

I stopped. Together with my interpreter, I walked inside and engaged several people in conversation.

The situation was desperate. Children were hungry and could not register for schools through the UNHCR or through the Lebanese government, which, by that time, had almost collapsed. Many electronic food cards that were issued to the migrants did not function. Work permits were not offered, and without proper paperwork, local social services could not be used. In brief: a total disaster.

I was told that in this area, some Syrian migrants had already been starving.

This was Bekaa Valley, a tough place to start with, and full of ancient traditions, clans, gangs and narcotic-business. Refugees were expected to keep their heads down, or else…

Before I left, two little girls, two sisters, approached me. Both had swollen bellies, suffering from malnutrition. Both were dressed in rugs. Both looked deprived.

But after spotting my cameras, they were mesmerized, smiling at me, showing tongues, laughing.

Their country was in ruins, their future uncertain.

But these were just two little girls in the middle of the mountains, two girls excited about each and every little detail of life. Such innocence! Such hope! People are people, and children are children, everywhere, even during wars.

Unfortunately, I have witnessed too many of them; too many wars. Too many barbarities performed by NATO, by the Empire, by the United States and Europe.

Later, working on the Greek island of Kos and in Calais in France, I kept thinking about those two girls, again and again.

The West (or call it NATO, or anything you like – we all know what I mean!) has, in the most cynical manner, destabilized and destroyed the entire Middle East. As it has in virtually all the continents of the world, it ruined tremendous cultures, plundered all it could put its hands on, turned proud people into slaves. Libya and Iraq are no more! I can testify, as I work all over the Middle East.

And then the West enclosed itself into its gold-plated bunker, slowly and disgustingly digesting its booty!

How many refugees are there that Europe says: “it cannot accept”? 1 million? Tiny, miniscule Lebanon has 2 million, and it is coping; badly but coping!

And Lebanon did not destroy Syria, Libya, Afghanistan or Iraq.

You know how it all feels like? Like observing a woman who was gang-raped, whose husband was murdered in front of her own eyes, and whose beautiful house was looted. Now this woman, just in order to save her starving children from the rubbles, is forced to go to Europe, to the rapists and thieves who destroyed her life, asking for shelter and food. And they spit into her face! They say: “It is too much for us, too difficult to accommodate you and others like you! Woman, you came to take advantage of us. You came to have a better life at our expense!”

This is how it looks from the outside. This is how I see it.

And I want to puke. But there is no time… One has to work, day and night, to stop this madness.

The West, of course including Europe, is too hardened by its own crimes, too cynical, and too unrepentant.

It remains blind, because it simply does not pay to see!

***

There is no Left Wing in Europe, anymore. Not the Left as we understand the term in Cuba and other revolutionary nations.

To us, true left means “Internationalism”, solidarity!

True left is global, egalitarian, and color-blind.

European so-called Left is only concerned with the benefits of its own citizens. It does not care at all where the funds are coming from.

As long as French, Greek, Spanish or Italian farmers get their subsidies and perks, who cares that agriculture in Africa or Asia gets thoroughly ruined. The most important is that European farmers could drive their latest BMW’s, for producing something or not producing anything at all.

I saw absolutely grotesque concepts implemented in countries like Senegal, and other former French colonies: heavily subsidized French food produce flooded West Africa, supermarkets opened, local production collapsed. Then the prices spiked to 2-3 times higher levels than those in Paris. And so, in Senegal where incomes are perhaps only 10% of those in France, a yoghurt costs 3 times more than in Monoprix.

Who pays for those 35-hour workweeks? Who pays for socialized medical care and free education in the European Union? Definitely not the Europeans themselves! Most of the funds used to come from the colonies, from that unimaginable plunder of the world performed by the West.

Colonialism and imperialism are still there, but they often changed forms, although the toll on people in non-white countries continues to be the same.

The Belgian King Leopold II and his cohorts, in what is now Congo, massacred 10 million people, at the beginning of the 20th Century. Between 1995 and now, the West plundered the Democratic Republic of Congo once again, mercilessly, by using its closest allies in Africa – Rwanda, Uganda and Kenya. Again, between 7 and 10 million people died there, in just 20 years, and these are not some inflated numbers, these are numbers provided by the United Nations and its reports, including the so-called “Mapping Report”. All that horror, only so the West could have access to coltan (used in our mobile phones), to uranium, and other strategic materials. I compiled the evidence in my feature documentary film “Rwanda Gambit”.

All those ruined lives and countries, so that European citizens could have their benefits, long vacations, and social services.

When I discussed the issue with my friend, an Italian filmmaker from Naples, he snapped at me: “We don’t want to be like the Chinese. We don’t want to work hard like them!”

I replied: “Then live within your means! Do not allow your corporations and governments to massacre tens of millions of people, so that the companies could have their insane profits, and citizens those outrageous benefits.”

Recently, in Thailand, I overheard a group of unemployed Spaniards laughing about having a vacation in Southeast Asia, paid for by their unemployment benefits.

I know many countries, dependencies of the West, where losing one’s job is synonymous to a death sentence! But we are asked to feel sorry for Spaniards, Italians and Greeks. We are expected to see them as victims.

***

I am saddened to say, but it is not only the United States, but also Europe, which is totally, blissfully ignorant about its role in the world, and about the harm, about the horrors that it is spreading all over our Planet.

This discovery shocked me so much, that I spent 4 years crisscrossing the world, compiling the evidence and testimonies that illustrate the colonialist, neo-colonialist and imperialist legacy of the West, as well as the current neo-colonialist barbarities. The book is 840-pages long and it is called “Exposing Lies Of The Empire”. I hope, one day, it will be available in the Italian language!

The book has been receiving enthusiastic reception, but for me, this thick volume is not the end. Now I am compiling the second installment. The topic is just too enormous. The crimes, genocides, holocausts committed by the West on the people of our Planet, are too enormous.

Everything is linked to them! The entire arrangement of the world uses them as pillars.

In our book “On Western Terrorism – From Hiroshima to Drone Warfare”, written together with my friend Noam Chomsky, I was asked whether the Europeans actually realize what they have done to the world, during the last centuries.

(Just a side note – this book is now available in the Italian language “Terrorismo Occidentale”).

I replied to Noam: “They definitely don’t!”

And I repeat here, again: most of them, the great majority of them, do not realize it! They don’t want to see, to admit, that their opera houses, hospitals, museums, parks and promenades, are all constructed on the corpses of those who were robbed of everything: from Latin America and its open veins, to Asia and Africa. Slavery, unimaginable extermination campaigns, tremendous lists of horrors!

Before Noam and I began our discussion, I spent some time with several top statisticians, and our conclusion was chilling: directly or indirectly, the West massacred between 40 and 50 million people, between the Hiroshima A-bomb explosion, and the time of my long dialogue with Noam – in 2012.

The number of people, who were murdered throughout history, directly or indirectly, by European empires, all over the world, can only be calculated in hundreds of millions, and one of my statistician friends believes that the total accumulative number actually exceeds 1 billion.

***

When I was recently speaking at the China Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, and later in Moscow, having been invited by Russian philosophers and by several members of the Russian Academy of Science, I publicly declared that I am fundamentally against “free medical care and free education in Europe”.

When asked “why?” I explained that the cost is too high, and those robbed and destroyed people, all over the world, are almost exclusively expected to cover it.

But I continued: “I am totally, decisively, supportive of universal free medical care, education and essential social benefits. Or as we say in Cuba: everyone dances, or nobody does!”

Of course I also can tolerate and support free medical care, education and benefits in those countries that do not plunder the world, like Cuba, China, Venezuela, Bolivia, South Africa or Ecuador.

***

Not only the West refuses to face its responsibility for, by now, the almost absolute total destruction of the world, it is also using all sorts of smoke screens and propaganda tactics to divert the attention of the people; it is spreading nihilist economic concepts, propaganda and outright lies.

It is using education as a weapon, offering scholarships to children of elites in the countries it is robbing and controlling. After being indoctrinated, they return home and continue violating their own countries on behalf of the United States and Europe.

And so the vicious cycle continues!

I encountered so many grotesque moments, when for instance, an Indonesian upper class family returning from its vacation in Holland, begins a long litany, about how great are the theaters, trains, museums and public spaces in Netherlands, compared to those in Indonesia.

Of course they are! All built from centuries of Dutch plunder of Indonesia, like those Spanish cathedrals stuffed with gold, growing from corpses.

As Noam Chomsky often says: “not to see all this truly takes great discipline!”

***

The brutality of the Western Empire is unmatchable. Its cynicism is monumental!

Look at those so-called “terrorists” in Muslim countries, scarecrows that Western governments and media keep waving in front of our eyes!

Islamic culture is greatly socialist and socially oriented. After World War II, secular, socialist, revolutionary and anti-Western governments ruled the most important Muslim nations: Egypt, Iran and Indonesia.

Within two decades, the West overthrew them all, implementing fascist regimes.

It then invented the Mujahideen and injected them into Afghanistan, in order to finish with the Soviet Union.

And once it felt the need for some monumental enemy to replace Communism, it manufactured and then armed, trained and educated groups like al-Qaida, al-Nusra and ISIS.

This move served two important goals: to justify astronomical military and intelligence budgets, and to portray the Western/Christian civilization as “culturally superior”, fighting “Arab terrorist monsters”.

Of course, the great majority of the people in Europe and North America are so indoctrinated, intellectually self-righteous and defunct, that they remain blind when faced with those Machiavellian pirouettes.

For the European public, there are plenty of “good reasons” to stick to those inherently racist beliefs, and to protectionism. There are even better reasons for hiding those millions of heads in the sand!

And so it goes.

***

I am here, in Italy, and today I do not want to discuss the United States, Israel, or other colonies and client states of the West. We can do it some other time, if I am invited back.

I spoke about Europe.

And I spoke about those two Syrian girls I met in Lebanon.

They are your responsibility, too, Italy! They suffer from malnutrition because your part of the world is ruining their country. It is because your country is a member of NATO, and NATO is behaving like a fascist thug with some clear mafia behavioral patterns.

I know you have heart!

I grew up on your films, on Fellini and de Sica, Rossellini, Antonioni and others. I greatly admire your poetry and music. They had tremendous influence on my work, and on how I see the world.

But your heart, it seems, lately goes only to your own people. It is not an internationalist heart. It does not believe that all people are equal.

I came here to say this, because not too many people dare to.

I came here because I still care for your country.

But as a determined socialist realist, I care about Italy as it “could and should be”, not “as it is” at this moment.

Thank you!

Andre Vltchek is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries.

05 February, 2016
Countercurrents.org

By Franklin Lamb

Damascus: It is widely recognized that the damage done to our cultural heritage in Syria and to the heritage of those who will follow us, cannot be calculated. Untold quantities of archaeologically vital artifacts have been looted, sold, displaced and discarded through industry-like efforts.

Citizens of Syria who are increasingly resisting the “IS Caliphate” and risking their own and their families lives to flee ISIS controlled areas in Syria are often willing to discuss their experiences and to offer instructive insights.

Among these patriots are regular citizens as well as the stellar nationalist employees of Syria’s Directorate General of Antiquities and Museums (DGAM) who this observer has interviewed extensively over the past nearly three years as they elucidate why ISIS destroys and loots our irreplaceable antiquities. This observer’s research has been augmented by other eyewitnesses, some who are themselves former jihadists or their victims, to ISIS looting and its distribution of franchises to sell off our shared cultural heritage give witness.

Heretofore, three varying but cogent explanations for ISIS’ rabid destruction of our shared cultural heritage have been commonplace.

The first identified the well documented Islamic State iconoclastic antipathy towards their and our pre-Islamic past. The second is that the jihadists are generally considered to be profiting hugely from selling our looted antiquities.

Thirdly there has been some evidence-but not compelling in this observers judgment, that jihadists are destroying our cultural heritage in Syria as ‘publicity stunts’ to get attention on social media, with some motivated by profit and offering to sell Syrian artifacts via Facebook, WhatsApp, and Snapchat. Meanwhile, according to a US Congressional staffer this week, leftover artifacts are currently being sold by IS to locals at public auctions including but not limited to Raqqa, Mari, Dura-Europos and Deir al Zor.

With respect to the first and second explanations, it is well documented that ISIS has ransacked thousands of artifacts from dozens of World Heritage and archaeological sites in Syria and that the profits from flogging cheap our cultural heritage helps IS meet its monthly budgets, more than 50% of which goes to pay salaries and multiple relatively generous benefits to its fighters and their families.

Yet research by this observer on this subject concludes that ISIS looting income, contrary to many claims including a recent one by CBS News that reported that ISIS generated “hundreds of millions of dollars” from antiquities transactions, although that figure—which rivals the annual haul of antiquities sold legally throughout the entire world, has not been backed up by probative, material data.

One expert, Randall A. Hixenbaugh, Director of New York based Hixenbaugh Ancient Art, told a Manhattan conference recently, “We’re looking at objects that are worth hundreds of dollars here. When we say that these antiquities are worth millions of dollars, where is the evidence of this? I think that prompts people to pick up shovels in eastern Syria. Are we not adding to the problem right now, by hyperbolic assessments of value?”

On May 15, 2015 a raid by American Special Forces on an ISIS safe house in a small village outside Deir ez-Zor killed ISIS leader Fathi Ben Awn Ben Jildi Murad al-Tunisi, better known by his nickname Abu Sayyaf who was in charge of overseeing the excavation of our cultural heritage. The raid also freed an 18-year old Yazidi slave woman, and captured a trove of documents that revealed far lower amounts from marketing cultural heritage artifacts than earlier estimated. The raid also uncovered many USB’s containing documents verifying that our cultural heritage artifacts are for ISIS just a natural resource to be extracted from the ground rather than as “ghanim” a.k.a looted items or spoils of war.

Selling plundered antiquities is frankly not strategic funding for IS compared to oil, banks, taxes and stolen goods. Far from the initial claims that ISIS was making tens of millions or more from stolen antiquities, the true figures are likely far lower. Some antiquities can indeed be sold to the final buyer in Europe, the United States or Asia for large amounts. But most of the material coming out of the ground in ISIS areas on a daily basis, such as pottery, glassware, coins, and architectural fragments are worth, at most, several hundred dollars at the final point of sale.

The total annual income of ISIS from antiquities is currently calculated by this observer and others who are more expert, at only a few million dollars; compared to, say, oil revenue, which for 2014 was estimated to be between $100 million and $263 million.

Admittedly hard data is tough to come by and while Archaeologists can no longer visit most of Syria, they do monitor cultural depredation in Syria from the secure vantage point of outer space. Employing pretty amazing high-resolution satellite imagery as Oxford University’s Institute of Digital Archaeology (IDA) is doing as it instructs us and gives us hope for restorations of our cultural heritage in Syria with its One Million Images project.

This observer submits that there is a forth and even more sinister reason that has not been much considered with respect to the Islamic State brand, which admittedly is an ambitious and seductive vision that has proven to be a fairly major social media success. He posits for dear readers consideration that the destruction and looting of our heritage underpins an intricate scaffolding of intense micro-managed social control over its captive populations, a system that is designed to intensely regulate individual behavior.

This even applies with respect to where and when to excavate and to loot our antiquities with maps and time and date-stamped permits in hand, at assigned archaeological sites thought worthwhile to excavate and to strip of anything guessed to be of some value.

Recently ISIS has introduced a highly organized control over looting of our cultural heritage which is evidenced by satellite photos revealing neat rows of looting holes on archaeological sites. As noted above, ISIS considers antiquities a natural resource such as oil or gas along with its large-scale operation of theft of personal and real property. Its Department of Precious Resources (Diwan al Rikaz) which controls mines and minerals also now oversees antiquities and issues excavation permits. Diwan al Rikaz demands on average 20% of objects excavated, it also applies a sales tax and uses social media to augment its marketing while relying mainly on obedient citizens to do the excavation work while its fighters perform their jihadist duties elsewhere. Unlike oil extraction, antiquities looting are not a major guaranteed stream of income in fact locally the activity is a bit of a gamble. As in a Los Vegas casino, many can wager but with only a long shot prospect of a high payoff. The vast majority of artifacts currently being unearthed at sites in Syria are of great archaeological importance but little value on the art market.

Increasing its social control by regulating the theft and destruction of our past is now part of a wider and expanding organizing frenzy of the IS.

The ISIS glossy propaganda magazine, now issued in 14 languages, ‘Dabiq,’ named after a key site in Muslim apocalypse mythology, and which bills itself as a periodical magazine focusing on the issues of tawhid (unity), manhaj (truth-seeking), hijrah (migration), jihad (holy war) and jama’ah (community) frequently features ISIS attacks on Syria’s pre-Islamic heritage sites.

Typical of its taunting of those who value culture heritage is Dabiq’s recent comment:

“Enemies of the Islamic State were furious at losing a ‘treasured heritage.’ The mujahidīn, however, were not the least bit concerned about the feelings and sentiments of the kuffar. (ed: ‘non-believers’). The kuffar had unearthed these statues and ruins in recent generations and attempted to portray them as part of a cultural heritage and identity that the Muslims of Syria should embrace and be proud of. Yet this opposes the guidance of Allah and His Messenger and only serves a nationalist agenda.”

This sort of ISIS iconoclasm mirrors its other social control punishments. Dabiq recently featured a post-card size list of good citizen ‘reminders’ recommending that it be always carried by IS citizens:

“Death for blasphemy against God, death for blasphemy against the Prophet Mohammad, death for apostasy against Islam, death to both the penetrator and receiver of gay sex, hand and leg amputations for theft, more than two dozen violations such as drinking wine earn 80 or more lashes, while “highway criminality” brings death by crucifixion.”

Another sign of intensifying social control by ISIS is found in recently issued laws on Hijab wearing in Syria. According to conversations of this observer with recent women escapees from IS areas in Syria, all women past the age of puberty must comply with the following social control rules on Hijabs or face draconian punishments. Specifically, all women in Syria must wear Hijabs that are thick and not revealing. “It must be loose (not tight). It must cover all the body. It must not be attractive. It must not resemble the clothes of unbelievers or men. It must not be decorative and eye-catching. It must not be perfumed.”

In the south Beirut Hezbollah neighborhood of Dahiyeh, where this observer currently resides, Shia women are known and appreciated for their attractive often richly colored head coverings and scarves/hijabs and for their special way of tying them to one side under their chin that is quite distinctive, attractive and often are conscious fashion statements. This is forbidden for all Muslims in IS areas of Syria, Iraq, Libya and elsewhere ISIS has control of populations on penalty of 80 lashes.

Further tightening social control is evidenced by ISIS which is currently introducing a higher organized and centralized control over looting of our cultural heritage which is evidenced by satellite photos revealing neat rows of looting holes on archaeological sites.

ISIS considers antiquities a natural resource such as oil or gas along with its large-scale operation of theft of personal and real property. Its Department of Precious Resources (Diwan al Rikaz) that controls mines and minerals also oversees antiquities and issues excavation permits, takes on average 20% of objects excavated, applies a sales tax and uses social media to augment its marketing which relies mainly on obedient citizens to do the work while its fighters perform their jihadist duties elsewhere. Artifacts are now also being sold, according to Syrian citizens who have fled, to locals at public auctions in Raqqa and Deir al Zor.

By controlling antiquities like other resources, ISIS inserts itself into countless holes in the ground. The real goal is not simply cash profit but rather it is psychological control over new ranges of behavior and thought of its subjects which is part of its totalitarian vision of absolute control. ISIS has transformed the pre-Islamic past of Syria into a forbidden zone, a mere natural resource to be exploited. But while the financial profits may be relatively small, more importantly it also offers ISIS yet another way to control the behavior and thoughts of its population, transforming them from captives into dependents of the “Caliphate.”

Increasingly the Obama administration and its allies are frustrated regarding the subject of the need to protect and preserve Syria’s Endangered Heritage. They remain less than confident that ISIS plundering of our heritage in Syria as part of its intensifying social control in its “Caliphate” can be stopped anytime soon.

Yet at the urging of the White House, last week the Senate Foreign Relations Committee worked on H.R. 1493, the Protect and Preserve International Cultural Property Act and favorably reported the measure for full consideration by the Senate.

The original bill which passed in the House of Representative in June 2015 called for the appointment of an Assistant Secretary of State as the new United States Coordinator for International Cultural Property Protection, commonly referred to in Washington as a “Cultural Czar”. The new language which was designed to obtain early passage, recommends “that the President should establish an inter-agency coordinating committee to coordinate and advance the efforts of the executive branch to protect and preserve international cultural property at risk.”

The mandate of the new inter-agency committee, to be chaired by an Assistant Secretary of State, includes working to protect and preserve international cultural property in Syria while working to prevent and disrupt cultural heritage looting and trafficking in Syria.

The legislation’s mandate also includes protecting sites of cultural and archaeological significance while seeking to provide for the lawful exchange of international cultural property from Syria.

Franklin Lamb’s recent book, Syria’s Endangered Heritage, An International Responsibility to Preserve and Protect, is available on Amazon/Kindle, Smashwords, and other ebook sites as well as in hard-copy in Arabic and English. Lamb is currently based in Beirut and Damascus and reachable c/o fplamb@gmail.com

05 February, 2016
Countercurrents.org

By Countercurrents.org

A UN legal panel has ruled that Wikileaks founder Julian Assange should be allowed go free and be compensated for his “deprivation of liberty”. The UN’s Working Group on Arbitrary Detention said that Assange’s detention “should be brought to an end, that his physical integrity and freedom of movement be respected”. “Assange should be afforded the right to compensation,” it added.

The Wikileaks founder had been subjected to “different forms of deprivation of liberty” it said, initially while he was held in isolation at London’s Wandsworth Prison for 10 days in 2010. The deprivation had been “continuous” since he was initially arrested in the UK on 7 December 2010.

It also found a “lack of diligence” by the Swedish Prosecutor’s Office in its investigations, which resulted in his lengthy loss of liberty. Three members of the five-person panel found in Mr Assange’s favour, while one rejected his claim and another did not take part in the investigation.

Assange, 44, – who faces extradition to Sweden over a rape claim, which he denies – claimed asylum in London’s Ecuadorean embassy in 2012.
He has been arbitrarily detained since his arrest in 2010, the panel said.

Speaking at a news conference via a video link from the embassy, he said the opinion of the panel was “vindication”, adding: “The lawfulness of my detention is now a matter of settled law.”

Mr Assange said it was a “really significant victory that has brought a smile to my face”.

However, the UK Foreign Office said the report “changes nothing” and it will “formally contest the working group’s opinion”.

UK Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said Assange was a “fugitive from justice”, adding that he can come out “any time he chooses” but will still have to face justice in Sweden.

The Police said it will make “every effort” to arrest Assange should he leave the embassy.

The government says the panel’s ruling is not legally binding in the UK and a European Arrest Warrant remains in place – meaning the UK continues to have a legal obligation to extradite Mr Assange.

05 February, 2016
Countercurrents.org

By Ali Abunimah

Israeli doctors say that Palestinian hunger-striker Muhammad al-Qiq could die at any minute.

The 33-year-old journalist remained on hunger strike in the HaEmek hospital in Afula, in the north of present-day Israel, for the 75th consecutive day on Saturday.

Hiba Masalha, an attorney for the Palestinian Authority’s Commission for Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs, visited al-Qiq on Friday evening in the hospital where he is being kept under an Israeli court order.

Masalha said that al-Qiq is in a “struggle against death”

A photo tweeted by the Quds news outlet on Saturday shows al-Qiq with a Quran by his hospital bedside:

“There has been a severe deterioration in the health condition of the detained journalist Muhammad al-Qiq,” Masalha told Quds.

“He has completely lost the ability to speak. He continues to suffer from fatigue, dizziness and breathing difficulties due to the continuation of his hunger strike and his refusal of treatment for the 74th consecutive day,” she said.

Masalha added that al-Qiq’s condition has become severe following his rejection of the Israeli high court’s decision to “freeze” his administrative detention order.

On Thursday, the Israeli judges “froze” al-Qiq’s detention – but ordered him to remain in HaEmek hospital.

Al-Qiq began his hunger strike in November, shortly after Israeli authorities arrested him. Following his interrogation, Israel put him in administrative detention – indefinite imprisonment without charge or trial.

“The court’s decision is deception,” Masalha said, adding that al-Qiq’s demand “is an end to his detention, not a freezing which means that he can be re-arrested at any time.”

Masalha said that the deputy director of HaEmek hospital, Dr. Tuvia Tiyosuno, had informed her that al-Qiq is in extreme danger and in constant decline.

Al-Qiq’s internal organs could fail at any time and he is at high risk of bleeding in his brain.

His heart could stop beating at any time, which is why the hospital’s ethics committee decided that al-Qiq could be treated against his will if it meant saving his life, Masalha said the Israeli doctor told her.

“Every minute that passes poses a threat to his life,” Masalha cited Tiyosuno saying.

Masalha said she was called to the hospital by the Israeli doctors Friday evening in light of al-Qiq’s condition and his insistence that any treatment he received would take place only in a Palestinian hospital.

Masalha added that efforts were ongoing with Israel’s military occupation authorities to reach an agreement over al-Qiq’s case.

On Friday, Palestinian media disseminated this video of al-Qiq in his hospital bed holding a sign in English, Hebrew and Arabic declaring that he was continuing his hunger strike:

Earlier on Saturday, Quds TV reported that al-Qiq’s family had denied that any deal had been reached.

Human rights organizations and UN officials have called on Israel to charge or release al-Qiq, who is one of more than 660 Palestinians held in administrative detention.

As his strike has continued, Palestinians throughout the occupied West Bank, Gaza Strip and present-day Israel have held rallies and vigils in solidarity with al-Qiq.

On Friday, among his visitors in hospital was Sheikh Raed Salah, leader of the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel, a political party Israel outlawed in November.

Update

On Sunday, al-Qiq refused an Israeli offer to be released in May. While still gravely ill and at risk of death, the hunger striker is insisting on an immediate end to his administrative detention, the Ma’an News Agency reported.

Ali Abunimah Co-founder of The Electronic Intifada and author of The Battle for Justice in Palestine, now out from Haymarket Books. Also wrote One Country: A Bold-Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse. Opinions are mine alone.

08 February, 2016
Electronicintifada.net

By Caitlin Gibson

Concepcion Picciotto, the protester who maintained a peace vigil outside the White House for more than three decades, a demonstration widely considered to be the longest-running act of political protest in U.S. history, died Jan. 25 at a housing facility operated by N Street Village, a nonprofit that supports homeless women in Washington. She was believed to be 80.

She had recently suffered a fall, but the immediate cause of death was not known, said Schroeder Stribling, the shelter’s executive director.

Ms. Picciotto — a Spanish immigrant known to many as “Connie” or “Conchita” — was the primary guardian of the anti-nuclear-proliferation vigil stationed along Pennsylvania Avenue.

In a 2013 profile in The Washington Post, Ms. Picciotto said she spent more than 30 years of her life outside the White House “to stop the world from being destroyed.”

Through her presence, she said she hoped to remind others to take whatever action they could, however small, to help end wars and stop violence, particularly against children.

Ms. Picciotto, a diminutive woman perpetually clad in a helmet and headscarf, was a curious and at times controversial figure in Washington. Fellow activists lauded her as a heroine. Critics and even casual passersby, reading her hand-lettered signs, dismissed her as foolish, perhaps unwell. Ms. Picciotto was quick to share elaborate accounts of persecution by the government, which she considered responsible for many of her physical ailments.

Ellen Thomas, a demonstrator who protested alongside Ms. Picciotto for decades, told The Post in 2013 that the truth was somewhere in between. She acknowledged that there were “issues that haven’t been addressed” where Ms. Picciotto’s mental health was concerned but lauded her dedication and stamina.

Ms. Picciotto spoke little of her life before 1960, when she emigrated to New York City and worked as a receptionist for the economic and commercial office of the Spanish Embassy. She met an Italian man who became her husband in 1969, with whom she adopted an infant daughter, she said.

Ms. Picciotto first came to the White House in 1979, she said, after she came to believe that her husband had orchestrated an illegal adoption and arranged to have Ms. Picciotto separated from their child and committed. She believed she was the target of a web of conspiracies — involving doctors, lawyers and the government — and hoped that elected officials could help get her daughter back.

But that never happened. Ms. Picciotto said she last saw the child when the girl was a toddler.

She had just given up on reconnecting with her daughter when she met William Thomas, a self-described wanderer, philosopher and peace activist who founded the peace vigil along Pennsylvania Avenue. Ms. Picciotto joined Thomas there in 1981 — since she could not help her own child, she said, she wanted to do what she could to help other children — and the two became a fixture in the park.

They were joined in 1984 by Ellen Benjamin, who soon married Thomas. The budding romance sparked hostility from Ms. Picciotto, who questioned Ellen Thomas’s motives for joining the protest and believed the new woman was after William Thomas’s money.

But despite that perpetual tension, Ellen Thomas told The Post, the trio protested together in the park for 25 years. The group’s grass-roots nuclear disarmament campaign was known as Proposition One, and its crowning achievement came in 1993, when a nuclear disarmament petition circulated by the activists resulted in a ballot initiative passed by District voters.

Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District’s congressional delegate, helped the activists prepare a nuclear disarmament and conversion act, which she has since introduced in nearly a dozen sessions of Congress. The legislation has never reached the floor for a vote.

Norton told The Post in 2013 that although the value of the vigil’s presence could not be readily quantified, it has served as an important and ongoing reminder to all who passed by.

“They want to keep the issue of nuclear proliferation and its potential terrible consequences before the public,” Norton said of the protesters. “And they have chosen a prime spot to do it. . . . We won’t ever know what the success is, because it doesn’t have a specific end of the kind we are used to.”

From their rudimentary encampment on the red-brick walkway in Lafayette Square, the protesters demonstrated against wars and military conflicts, survived historic blizzards and scorching heat waves, and endured tense confrontations with passersby and police.

The vigil evolved into a well-recognized feature of the city’s landscape. The makeshift shelter became a regular stop for D.C. tour guides and a topic of discussion in local college classrooms. The vigil and its keepers made a cameo appearance in Michael Moore’s 2004 political documentary film “Fahrenheit 9/11” and starred in another feature-length documentary, “The Oracles of Pennsylvania Avenue” (2011).

When Thomas died in 2009, Ms. Picciotto vowed to continue her protest in his honor. But the vigil’s future was called into question in recent years, as its aging caretaker faced health problems and the possibility of eviction from the home she shared with other activists in Northwest Washington.

After Ms. Picciotto was hit by a cab in 2012 while riding her bicycle, she came to rely heavily on the help of younger activists to maintain the vigil, which could not be left unattended, according to National Park Service rules.

For months, the activists — many of whom lived with Ms. Picciotto at Peace House, a rowhouse owned by Ellen Thomas — took turns guarding the vigil, allowing Ms. Picciotto to scale back her watch to just a few hours each day.

But on two occasions in recent years, activists abandoned their station during overnight shifts, and the shelter and its signs were quickly removed by police. In both instances, the station and its signs were later returned by authorities.

Peace House was sold last year,, and Ms. Picciotto eventually found shelter at N Street Village, within walking distance of her vigil. “I have to be here,” she said of her work. “This is my life.”

Caitlin Gibson is a feature writer at The Washington Post.

25 January 2016

www.washingtonpost.com