Saturday 25 April 2020

هل يكون حسان دياب هو المنقذ؟


أعلن رئيس الحكومة حسان دياب الحرب من دون مجاملة أو مهادنة أو تردّد على الفساد والفاسدين بصراحته المعهودة وبثقة رجل الدولة المسؤول والمؤتمن على الوطن والناس والمؤسسات، الواثق من قدرته على مواجهة طبقة سياسية ومالية متمرّسة في وضع اليد والسيطرة على مقدّرات الدولة وأموالها العامة وحقوق الشعب وعلى تجيير المؤسسات الرسمية لخدمة مصالحها وأزلامها، وقد رفع دياب سقف كلامه حتى الحدّ الأقصى في اتهام حاكم مصرف لبنان رياض سلامة وتحميله مسؤولية الانهيارات المتتالية المالية والنقدية وخاصة ارتفاع سعر صرف الدولار غير المسبوق، وأدّى إلى هبوط حادّ في قيمة العملة الوطنية ونجح في كشف المستور المخبّأ في مغارة المصرف المركزي.
انّ ما تضمّنه كلام رئيس الحكومة من قصر بعبدا يؤشر إلى انّ المعركة فتحت على المنظومة السياسية والمالية من دون هوادة، وانها بمثابة قرار ملزم لا يمكن التراجع عنه أو الانسحاب منه تحت أية ذرائع او مبرّرات وربطها بدقة وحساسية الأوضاع الاقتصادية والمالية والاجتماعية، وأعتقد انّ قرار المواجهة مع هذه الطبقة قد اتخذ عن سابق إصرار وتصميم، خاصة انّ اللعب على المكشوف وفلتان السوق المالي والنقدي والتلاعب بالليرة ومصير الوطن والشعب لم يعد مطلوباً أن تقف الحكومة والجهات السياسية الرسمية والحرصاء على هذا البلد وهو ينهار ويغرق ويحتضر، ولا بدّ من يد نظيفة لانتشاله وإنقاذه ولو بقشة أو موقف أو حتى بكلمة صادقة صادرة عن رجل جاء من أقصى المدينة لخوض غمار معركة الإنقاذ… ورغم الصعوبات قد يكون حسان دياب، ولكن دون ذلك مصاعب وعقبات وتضحيات.
انّ أولى خطوات المواجهة وانْ كانت بالكلمة الموقف والنجاح أوله كلام وآخره حصاد وفير، وهذا يفرض البدء بتقويض أسس وقواعد امبرطوربات الطبقة السياسية والاقتصادية والمالية وقصّ أجنحتها وقطع رأس الأفعى والباقي يتساقط الواحد تلو الآخر كأوراق الخريف…
انّ شجاعة وجرأة وصراحة رئيس الحكومة لطالما انتظرها اللبنانيون المنتفضون على طبقة أكلت الأخضر واليابس، وقد صفقوا لها وله رغم الخوف من العودة الى التهدئة والتسوية وتأثير التدخلات الخارجية التي تهدّد كلّ من يعمل لمصلحة وطنه وضدّ ودائعها في لبنان وبعض مؤسساته.
انّ الصعود الى القمة إنجاز ولكن الإنجاز الأهمّ هو الحفاظ عليها والبقاء فيها وعدم السقوط الذي سيكون مدمّراً.
انّ كلمة دياب التي هي ليست كالكلمات تكمن أهميتها في مضمونها وتوقيتها، وهي بمثابة وعد وعهد من غير المقبول التراجع عنه مهما كانت الضغوط والمبرّرات لأنه الأمل الوحيد المتبقي للبنانيين وهو الرصاصة الأخيرة التي يجب أن تصيب الفساد وتجتثه وتخيف الفاسدين بل هي الرهان الأخير الذي يعوّل عليه…

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!

Israel Prepares for Annexation of the West Bank

By Jeremy Salt
Netanyha Gantz b3bd0
Since the election of Donald Trump in 2016, Israel and its global lobbies have had an extraordinary run of success.
In the US and Canada, the passage of laws against the BDS movement; US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and the shifting of the embassy there; the appointment of an ambassador who is no more than Israel’s point man in Washington; the Kushner plan and US acceptance of Israeli annexation of the West Bank; and in the UK, the defeat of Jeremy Corbyn, partly if not largely based on  a slanderous campaign launched against the Labor Party generally and Corbyn personally.
This was the most malicious political assassination in British history, with the corporate media and the zionist lobby driving in the knives day after day. The main Jewish newspapers had already maligned Corbyn in the same front page editorial when the Chief Rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis, used the Corbyn-hating Times to attack Corbyn as “mendacious” and to plant fear amongst British Jews: “What will become of Jews and Judaism in Britain if the Labor Party forms the next government?” Nothing would happen, of course, not to British Jews, but there would be significant changes affecting Britain’s relations with the racist settler enterprise it established in Palestine more than a century ago.
These attacks were not about Judaism but Israel. Jeremy Corbyn is not an anti-semite. This is so obvious that it should not need saying. The false charge of anti-semitism is the weapon used by zionists throughout modern history to destroy critics of Israel and here it was being used again.
Had Corbyn expressed undying support for Israel – as Keir Starmer has since done –  this issue would never have arisen.  Jews inside and outside the Labor Party would have issued statements that while there were bad apples in every barrel,  anti-semitism was a minor issue which the party leadership was dealing with. They would not have hesitated to canvass votes for the Labor Party.
Corbyn has a lifelong record of defending human rights everywhere and that includes the human rights of the Palestinians. Had he been elected he would have re-orientated foreign policy in their favor. That had to be prevented at all costs and the accusation of anti semitism was the weapon used,  on the grounds that repeated often enough people would believe it.
Thus a good man with good policies was thrown aside and a buffoon with no policies installed in his place. In time, once they realize they were duped, the British people may remember the knifing of Corbyn by the zionists.
Now Israel is moving on to its next success, the annexation of the West Bank. This is due to begin on July 1, Netanyahu and Gantz having agreed on its fundamentals and the US ready to rubber-stamp whatever portion of territory they decide to take.
Initially, this seems to be 30 percent plus the Jordan Valley. The 70 percent ostensibly left to the Palestinians will mostly consist mostly of rural land running alongside the border with Jordan.
The Trump-Kushner  ‘peace’ plan was deliberately written to be unacceptable to the Palestinians, all of them, including the now-embittered Mahmud Abbas. His ‘threats’ to rip up all accords if they go ahead is no more than the squeaking of a rusty wheel. He used the zionists and they used him. Now he has been discarded, Mahmud Abbas is of no relevance to anyone.
In the soundings he would have taken before his plan was released,  Kushner would have known perfectly well that the Palestinians would never accept it. No capital in Jerusalem, disarmament in Gaza as well as on the West Bank, Israel in charge of ‘security’ and all borders, no right of return, no more legal claims against Israel on the basis of history, no independent foreign policy, no joining of any international organization except with Israel’s approval, no more payments to the families of martyrs (Israel’s ‘terrorists’) and the acceptance of Israel as a Jewish state.  This was the price demanded of the Palestinians in return for their ‘state’ and as Kushner well knew, they could not possibly pay it.  His plan was designed from the start to be rejected by the Palestinians.
Even if they had accepted this ‘deal’ every loophole had been inserted into it to make sure  Israel ultimately gets what it wants  – all of the West Bank – anyway.  This situation,  of an offer they could not possibly accept,  is one imposed on them throughout their modern history.  When they reject what they cannot possibly accept, whether it be the Peel partition plan of 1937, the UN partition plan of 1947, the establishment of Israel on their land in 1948 or  the Camp David plan of the 1990s,  it is they who are made to shoulder the blame for the failure of the latest ‘peace process.’ If there is a difference now, it is that the Kushner-Trump-Netanyahu plan is so transparently shoddy that anyone with eyes in their head can see right through it.
With increasing portions of the West Bank annexed, under the false sovereignty of an occupying power, the Palestinians will eventually be outnumbered by the settlers poured into their land.  This is the script being written by Netanyahu and his cohorts. A racist parliament will endorse it and even more pseudo-legal and practical obstacles will be raised to make life even more unbearable for the Palestinians.
This is a heinous plan, a plan devoid of any legality, a plan cooked up by criminals and charlatans. The zionists may see it as the end of the road but this is a long war and annexation is no more than another milestone in the struggle against the takeover of Palestine by European colonists in the 20th century.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!

Global Economic Collapse Reveals the Complete Failure of Neo-Liberal Capitalism


Global Economic Collapse Reveals the Complete Failure of Neo-Liberal Capitalism
Written by Dr. Leon Tressell exclusively for SouthFront
  • Fitch Ratings, ‘Unparalleled Global Recession Underway’
  • Economist Sven Heinrich, ‘Central banks are weapons of economic mass destruction.’
As each day passes by data pours in revealing the immense economic damage caused by the Coronavirus pandemic. Most politicians and economic pundits will put the blame for up the economic hurricane, blasting tens of millions into unemployment, on Coronavirus lock downs. Fitch Ratings has given a brief snapshot of the unfolding economic catastrophe which it predicts will last well into the 2020s:
“World GDP is now expected to fall by 3.9% in 2020, a recession of unprecedented depth in the post-war period. This is twice as large as the decline anticipated in our early April GEO update and would be twice as severe as the 2009 recession.”
“The decline in GDP equates to a USD2.8 trillion fall in global income levels relative to 2019 and a loss of USD4.5 trillion relative to our pre-virus expectations of 2020 global GDP. Fitch expects Eurozone GDP to decline by 7%, US GDP by 5.6%, and UK GDP by 6.3% in 2020.”javascript:window[“$iceContent”]
Yet at the beginning of this year the financial media and political classes around the world were making rosy forecasts how we were going to experience moderate economic growth this year built upon solid economic foundations. There was no cause for worry or alarm just let global capital work its magic and trickle-down economics would ensure living standards would rise for all.
Fast forward 4 months and a global health pandemic has revealed how shallow, brittle and unstable were the economic foundations of the neo-liberal economic order that has been heralded as such a success since the Reagan-Thatcher era of the 1980s. These foundations were built upon infinitely low interest rates, an exponential rise in debt both public and private (sending global debt over the $250 trillion mark) and a massive increase in social and economic inequality. Alongside this, has been the intense exploitation of nations in the developing world and the use of regime change wars as naked resource grabs which cement the neo-liberal economic model in position.The world economy was slowing down during 2019 and heading towards a global recession. Japan’s economy had already entered recession territory in the last quarter of 2019, meanwhile PMI data from China and Germany indicated that they were hovering just outside recession territory.The global economy at the end of 2019 was teetering on the brink and just needed a catalyst or pin to pop the everything bubble which has seen massive inflation in the prices of paper assets across the globe ranging from stocks and bonds to derivatives such as collateralized loan obligations.
The anaemic economic growth experienced by global capitalism since the last financial crisis, which was a mere 12 years ago, has been based upon a gigantic expansion of the global money supply as central banks and governments mistakenly believe that the only way to sustain our debt fuelled economic system was to create ever more debt.
The last 12 years since the 2008 global financial crisis have witnessed an unparalleled wealth transfer from the working classes to the billionaire class which wields immense political influence over governments across the world. Central bank stimulus programs i.e. quantitative easing together with historically low interest rates fuelled a speculative bonanza which has pushed financial markets to all-time highs across the globe.
Meanwhile, governments across the world have sought to give the hard pressed billionaire class a helping hand by cutting capital gains, income and corporation taxes across the board. President Trump’s $1 trillion tax give away to the economic elites in 2017 is the most egregious example of this phenomena.
At the same time, wages for billions of ordinary people have stagnated or fallen whilst welfare benefits and health care have declined. We now have the utterly surreal situation whereby 26 billionaires control as much wealth as the poorest half of humanity amounting to over 3.8 billion people.
The working and middle classes together with the underemployed poor of the developing world were made to pay for the costs of the 2008 global economic crisis. Once the Coronavirus pandemic has finally burned itself out the working people of this world will be confronted with an economic depression which will rival and indeed may exceed in severity that of the 1930s. Governments across the board will once again seek to make ordinary people pay for the cost of the gigantic debts incurred by government and central bank bailouts.
In a desperate effort to prop up their system and protect the interests of their own class central bankers and corporate politicians across the globe are presiding over yet another wealth transfer that benefits the richest 1% in society. Bloomberg has noted how over $8 trillion has been printed out of thin air by global central banks and governments to prop up their debt fuelled system. The bulk of this horde of fiat money has gone to service the needs of Wall Street and its counterparts in London, Paris Frankfurt, Shanghai et cetera.The Wall Street Journal has openly acknowledged this truth in an editorial:
“The Fed may feel all of this is essential to protect the financial system’s plumbing and reduce systemic risk until the virus crisis passes, but make no mistake the Fed is protecting Wall Street first. The goal seems to be to lift asset prices, as the Fed did after the financial panic, and hope that the wealth effect trickles down to the rest of the economy.”
As the 2020s progress massive wealth and health inequalities, hunger and poverty will lead large numbers of people to question the hyper financialised economic system whose sole motive is to protect the interests of the 1%.
The American dominated monetary system which gives preferential treatment to the empire and its allies is in decline. Its decline will be exacerbated by the twin hammer blows of the Coronavirus pandemic and the global economic depression now unfolding.
During the coming decade the make the world will become an even more unstable place as the hegemonic power of our era seeks to maintain its dominant position in the global economy at the expense of other nations. The contradictions and tensions between the United States and its rival China will be greatly exacerbated during the next period. As we saw in the 1930s once these economic contradictions and tensions reach breaking point then the superpowers of the day have few course of action open to them beyond war or appeasement of their rival.Yet during the 1930s there were instances where the onward march to war could have been averted. If Republican Spain had defeated Franco’s fascist insurgency then the momentum towards war would have been slowed. It would have greatly strengthened the Popular Front government in France and halted the appeasement policies that allowed Nazi Germany to grow in strength like a cancerous tumour.
During the next decade there will no doubt be other such instances where the onward march to war can be averted.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!

Israel and World Jewry

By Evan Jones
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The Covid-19 pandemic hits the world. Undeterred, the Israeli forces of Occupation (including the settlers) escalate the rampage and the outrages. Murders, harassment and arrests, home demolitions, destruction and/or theft of virus aid equipment and food and brutalizing of aid workers, Gaza crop poisoning on a grand scale, West Bank crop destruction, etc. Spitting on Palestinians is now de rigueur. Business as usual. Sadism on a grand scale. Whence the motivation? And the collective psychological reward? The Jewish God is a militant deity.
Israel is a pariah state. It is an apartheid state in its construction, [1] from its inception as an ethnocracy, not one for which the label ‘apartheid’ is merely a dangerous prospect on the horizon with a completely colonized West Bank.
How does Israel survive as such, given that apartheid South Africa has disappeared into history. It survives essentially because of support from the institutionalized structures of establishment world Jewry. Period.
Don’t talk Christian Zionists, as they are a side issue, crazies succoured to dilute the central causal lineage.
The US umbrella is tangibly of enormous importance. But behind the White House compliance is the Zionist lobby, from Truman onwards (albeit with occasional wobbles). The Zionist lobby owns Congress; those members they don’t own they simply extrude (starting with William Fulbright in 1974, Paul Findley, Pete McCloskey, Cynthia McKinney, etc.). The massive role of the US in supporting Israel is a product of institutionalized American Jewry – now centred on the peak body AIPAC.[2] The argument that US support of Israel is an instrumental means of projecting US power in the Middle East is diversionary; the posited hierarchy of master and proxy won’t wash. Cui bono?
The Zionist lobby only recently destroyed what was left of the integrity of the British Labour Party, installing a functionary at its head. The British state is Zionist-occupied territory; ditto that of France, Germany (hobbled by the Jewish holocaust), Canada and Australia.
Israel, as a racist state, is engaged in criminality sui generis. It was a guaranteed outcome known from the start. Theodore Herzl noted (1896): ‘An infiltration [of Jewish migrants to Palestine] is bound to end badly. It continues to the inevitable moment when the native population feels itself threatened … Immigration is consequently futile unless based on an assured supremacy’. Violence was implicit in Zionism from the outset.[3]
The native population felt itself threatened immediately, but the Zionist movement found solace and then salvation in the arrival of World War, the Balfour Declaration and subsequently the British Mandate over Palestine. Until the Zionists could muster the firepower to create its ‘promised land’ unilaterally by terrorism. That firepower was acquired from British training en masse, just prior to World War II (to quell the Arab rebellion) and during the War itself.
As David Hirst notes, regarding the massacres and bombings by Jewish forces in response to the MacDonald White Paper of May 1939: [4]
‘The ideological roots of ‘gun Zionism reach back to Theodor Herzl himself. It was inevitable, as he foresaw, that armed force would eventually come into its own as the principal instrument of a movement which, in its earlier and weaker phase, could only rely on the protection of an imperial sponsor. That phase was now drawing to a close.’
Israeli criminality must be sheeted home to the personnel within the institutions of the Israeli state – politicians, the military and intelligence services, the judiciary, etc. They are crimes of individuals, groupings, institutionalized, the personnel being uniformly Jewish.
Isn’t this criminality bad for world Jewry and what it means to be Jewish? Apparently not. Establishment Jewish institutions, with one voice, sign up for Israel’s crimes. More, support of Israel is their raison d’être – all while simultaneously shedding crocodile tears about anti-Semitism. The global Jewish community, whether Jewish individuals like it or not, is implicated in Israeli criminality by the dominant Jewish organizations who claim to speak for national Jewish communities.
The Wikipedia entry of the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC), clearly sanctioned by its subject, notes: ‘The Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council, represents the interests of the Australian Jewish community to …’. Here’s a representative conflation of the interests of the state of Israel and of a national Jewish community in its entirety.
John Lyons was Middle East correspondent for The Australian newspaper during 2009-15. His Balcony Over Jerusalem [5] is notable for the attention paid to the lobby. Like all budding Middle East correspondents, Lyons was inevitably the subject of attempted seduction and, failing that, subsequently the subject of escalating attacks for his endeavour to fulfil his role as independent reporter. A senior Israeli military officer observed to Lyons: ‘The Israel lobby in Australia is the most powerful lobby in the world in terms of impact it has within its own country’.
John Lyons bda94
The nation-based lobby works to ensure that its own government (whichever Party is in power) remains complacent, acquiescent, if not blood red in support. It also works tirelessly to control the information flow. Because Israel stinks, disinformation (lies, counter-narratives, fairy stories) and censorship have to be an integral part of the lobby’s activities. Lyons recounts how, in particular, AIJAC’s Colin Rubenstein constantly pressured senior management at The Australian to close down his reporting. (Senior management of the Murdoch-owned paper supported Lyons, in spite of the attempted scuttling by a middle level editor).
The other major Australian media chain, Fairfax (now Nine Entertainment), owner of the major Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra dailies, has faced the same pressure. Ditto the publicly-owned television stations ABC & SBS. Fairfax/Nine has persistently caved in, granting privileged access to the opinion and letters pages to pro-Israel apologists. An ex-Fairfax journalist, friend, confirms that the pressure of the lobby on management was relentless and intolerable.
In early January, in the Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne Age we have Rubenstein glorifying the assassination of Qasem Soleimani as ‘arch-terrorist’, presiding over a claimed multi-tentacled terrorist expansionist reach of Iran in the Middle East, destabilising everything in its wake. Rubenstein even has Iran behind the assassination of Lebanon’s Rafiq Hariri in 2005. Surprisingly, the online comments editor allowed multiple responses from ‘woke’ readers to Rubenstein as an Israel front man, whereas editors scrupulously deny such feedback in the print version of the newspaper. In the same issue of the papers we have an AIPAC flunkey claiming on cue that the essential issue behind US-Iran escalating tension is ‘the pressing need to prevent Iran from building nuclear weapons’, bizarrely accusing Iran of undermining the 2015 JCPOA nuclear deal.
Colin Rubenstein a22b3
Rubenstein was in the Herald again in late January, claiming that plenipotentiary Jared Kushner’s ‘Middle East Peace Plan (sic)’, in the formulation of which no Palestinian authorities were invited, is the greatest thing since sliced bread. Thus are Australians fed the regular odious drip, very rarely opposed in print, of the innate necessity and justice of Israel’s criminality.
Rather than the association between Israel and its global Jewish community support being severed as the daily brutality of the Israeli forces of Occupation accumulates, the association has recently been reinforced. The notable vehicle for this reinforcement has been the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance and its ‘working definition’ of anti-Semitism. The Definition skirts over ‘Holocaust Remembrance’ but pays majority attention to the treatment of Israel.
Thus we find that rational criticism, driven by conventional humanitarian principles, of Israel’s criminality is labelled anti-Semitic. More, IHRA personnel and Jewish organizations flog this definition, pressuring, pressuring national governments into submission to accept the definition and to act as repressive agents against free-thinking citizens of those countries.
And to those who object? The issue is concisely contained in a recent skirmish in faraway New Zealand. The brief report on stuff.nz deserves quoting at length. It turns out that the Wellington Jewish Council had requested New Zealand’s capital city to adopt the IHRA’s definition of anti-Semitism. But the Wellington Progressive Synagogue objected, claiming that the definition ‘had the potential to conflate antisemitism with anti-Zionism (opposition to the state of Israel), as it had already done overseas’. Too kind – not ‘potential’, as the point of the definition is precisely to conflate anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism.
Said Progressive Synagogue spokespersons: ‘Its new effect is to regulate the speech of people like ourselves: law-abiding non-Zionists who call for the unexceptional application of law and human rights in Israel/Palestine; Jews and non-Jews alike’. Quite.
The NZ Jewish Council responded that ‘the IHRA definition explicitly stated criticism of Israel could not be regarded as antisemitic’. A dishonest retort. The text includes the sentence ‘… criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic’. But this is transparently a ruse to deflect from the substance of the definition’s text for which the sentence is an aberration. And the meaning of ‘similar to that levelled against any other country’? Criticisms of Israel are aimed precisely at structures and practices that set it apart from other countries, including some countries that are utterly on the nose. The IHRA mob mean – we will be the arbiters of what is acceptable criticism. But, in truth, what is ‘acceptable’ criticism is an empty set.
But here’s the clincher. The Jewish Council continues: ‘The writers of the opinion piece were “fringe” and did not have a mandate to speak on behalf of the Jewish community – unlike the Jewish Council’.
‘Fringe’? ‘Mandate’? This is it in a nutshell. If you don’t support Israel 100 per cent, you aren’t a real Jew. And on what basis does the Jewish Council’s presumed ‘mandate’ rest?
Michelle Weinroth, author and member of Independent Jewish Voices Canada, nails the fraud and duplicity behind the IHRA push:
‘If the IHRA definition turns a blind eye to the veritable culprits of heinous racism, it nonetheless targets the anti-racist defenders of Palestinian human rights, many of whom are conscientious Jews. … it masquerades as an innocuous, educational, and preventative measure while acting as a penal code that aggresses the advocates of human rights, silencing them with veiled threats. … At its heart sits a false equation between the state of Israel and Jews more generally.’
A false equation between Israel and Jews ‘more generally’. Here’s another one. Recently brought to light, an earlier tussle took place in September 1991 when Israel demanded a $10 billion loan guarantee, which President George H Bush viewed as a means of undermining the forthcoming Madrid peace conference (Blankfort, fn.2). Bush Sr threatened to deny Israel the loan guarantees if the large contingent of migrants from the Soviet Union were to be directed into West Bank settlements. Philip Weiss reports:
‘The Israel lobby group the American Jewish Committee (AJC) decided to support the Israeli government against the White House in 1991 over illegal Israeli settlements on the West Bank, even though many officials at the organization privately backed the president. The AJC reasoned that a leading Jewish organization in Washington had a “primary responsibility” to stand up for Israel because the country represents the “collective will” of the Jewish people, an AJC official says.’
Israel represents the collective will of the Jewish people? Were ‘the Jewish people’ consulted?
One of the more remarkable attempts to associate Israel with the ‘collective will’ of the Jewish people, via the conflation of anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism, is a statement by one Robert Wistrich to the UN Commission on Human Rights, published on 10 September 2004.[6] Wistrich’s parents’ lives were blighted by anti-Semitism, and his subsequent stellar academic career was devoted to this very subject. Yet this statement is a wretched mishmash, devoid of logic and history, and conveniently oblivious to Israeli criminality. And this during the Prime Ministership of noted humanist Ariel Sharon. Wistrich claims:
‘Much of the mobilizing power of “anti-Zionism” derives from its link to the Palestinian cause. Since the 1960s, the [Palestine Liberation Organization] has worked hard to totally delegitimize Zionism and the policy has largely succeeded: this anti-Zionism involves a total negation of Jewish nationhood and legitimate Jewish sovereignty in Eretz Israel …’
Legitimate sovereignty in Eretz Israel? Sure. Wistrich’s tribalism has overridden his rigorous academic training. Curious, there are no Jewish dissenters in his grab bag of mad dog anti-Semites in a pragmatic coalition all aimed at the destruction of Israel.
Wistrich couldn’t really avoid this elephant in the room, so he grabbed the bull by the horns in a 2014 issue of Commentary (preaching to the converted). [7] Well-known Jewish intellectuals who don’t toe the Party line are accused of having been mentally and morally captured by infantile Marxism, etc., and/or anti-Americanism, their left-wing blinkered obsessions then finding its next object of abuse post-Vietnam in Israel. Noam Chomsky, Richard Falk, Howard Zinn (‘Hatred for America, the West, and Israel thrives beneath the cloak of human rights and social justice’), Eric Hobsbawm, Shlomo Sand, Ilan Pappé – all are excoriated for their sins.
In particular, Wistrich couldn’t have ignored Shlomo Sand, whose cannon volleys in The Invention of the Jewish People (2009) and The Invention of the Land of Israel (2012) blasted Wistrich’s self-assured self-righteousness to shreds. Wistrich dismisses Sand (‘his pseudoscientific delegitimization of Israel’) as merely having ‘revived long-discredited theories – such as Arthur Koestler’s deranged notion that Ashkenazi Jews sprang from Khazars who converted in the 10th century C.E.’. Wistrich ignored that Sand, in genuine scholarly fashion, put Koestler’s The Thirteenth Tribe (1976) into context with a considerable literature on the same theme.
The rhetoric of these contemptible lefties, claims Wistrich, ‘divorced from historical truth and geopolitical reality, negates any possibility of reform or redress concerning genuine grievances’. Genuine grievances? A chink in the armour? How could there be grievances against Israel that were genuine (the ‘empty set’ again), and who would decide? Evidently not the Palestinian victims or their Jewish sympathizers.
We have a comparable affair when French elder statesman Robert Badinter addressed UNESCO in December 2016,[8] appropriating Holocaust remembrance to plug Israel as synonymous with Jewry per se. Badinter played the same card as Wistrich:
‘What is certain is that in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, anti-Semitism has once again spread widely under the name of anti-Zionism. We must have the lucidity to recognize that under this label that refers to Zionism, it is indeed the Jews, and Jews everywhere, who are targeted. And I would say that anti-Zionism under the surface is nothing but the contemporary expression of anti-Semitism, namely, hatred of the Jews.’
The ‘not in my name’ communities, declining to join wholeheartedly the cause of Israel über alles, have been written out of the story. Einstein, Freud, Arendt, camp survivors like Hajo Meyer; individual authors, bloggers and/or activists; non-compliant Jewish organizations; Israeli human rights organizations; etc. It’s the Spinoza syndrome – ignored if too famous; otherwise excommunicated because ‘self-hating’ Jews, ‘fringe’ elements, etc.
When Hannah Arendt published Eichmann in Jerusalem,[9] highlighting the bureaucrat over the monster, even her fame didn’t save her from damnation. Daniel Maier-Katkin highlights the ongoing character assassination and its character:[10]
‘[A] campaign against the memory of Hannah Arendt continues, and the ideology that rationalizes and justifies ad hominem attacks and menacing gestures against Jews who dare to criticize Israel persists. As Rabbi [Michael] Lerner and Justice [Richard] Goldstone have learned, a Jew who fears that Israel is on a path that leads to destruction, or who is skeptical of a “divine mission to possess the land,” or concerned about the legality or morality of unrelenting military strategies to secure regional domination, will be attacked as self-hating and anti-Semitic.
‘To hate oneself is ipso facto pathological, and this, it is asserted, leads to irrational hatred of Israel, which is seen as the embodiment of the Jewish people. Thus, defenders of Israeli policies aim to exclude Jewish critics from public discourse by defining them as crazy persons, driven to anti-Semitism by self-loathing. In this way Lerner’s criticism of Israel, or Goldstone’s, or Arendt’s is dismissed as arising from psychological or spiritual disturbance rather than reasoned argument or an ethical posture. Calumny, an old-fashioned blend of slander, distortion, and innuendo, has been a recurring instrument of intimidation in post-Holocaust Jewish politics.’
In sum, Israeli state and settler criminality persist because it is supported uniformly by dominant national Jewish bodies, with de facto support and/or passivity from sections of the Jewish population. This instutionalized structure never fails to claim that it acts for Jewry in its entirety. Dissidents from the demand for unqualified support are cast aside from the tribe.
Is it not then possible, indeed probable, that some cool-headed people will reason that it is appropriate to become an anti-Semite? A stance rooted not in a time-worn shibboleth, but on the seeming support of the vast majority of world Jewry for Israeli criminality and inhumanity? Ersatz anti-Semitism (criticism of Israel), manufactured by the Zionist lobby as cover-up, thus potentially fosters substantive anti-Semitism. The real thing.
The Canadian (Jewish) philosopher Michael Neumann earlier nailed the implications:[11]
‘Inflating the meaning of ‘anti-Semitism’ to include anything politically damaging to Israel is a double-edged sword. … The more things get to count as anti-Semitic, the less awful anti-Semitism is going to sound. …
‘Since we are obliged to oppose the settlements, we are obliged to be anti-Semitic. Through definitional inflation, some form of anti-Semitism becomes morally obligatory. It gets worse if anti-Zionism is labelled anti-Semitic… The more anti-Semitism expands to include opposition to Israeli policies, the better it looks.
‘Given the crimes to be laid at the feet of Zionism, there is another simple syllogism: anti-Zionism is a moral obligation, so, if anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism, anti-Semitism is a moral obligation.’
The ‘not in my name’ communities, in their myriad dimensions and considerable expenditure of energy, have made not a jot of difference to Israel’s project. Why?
Gideon Levy, long-time Haaretz journalist providing a window into Israel’s soul, has honed in on the denial, conscious amongst its leaders, subliminal amongst the bulk of the populace, that accompanies Israel’s ongoing criminality. And behind it? Here is Levy in March 2018 (he said the same in an Australian lecture tour in November 2017):
‘There are three core values of Israeli culture that enforce the totalitarian discourse.
‘The first value: we are the chosen people. Secular and religious will claim it. Even if they don’t admit it they feel it. If we are the chosen people, who are you to tell us what to do. The second very deeply rooted value: we are the victims, not only the biggest victims, but the only victims around…. I don’t recall one occupation in which the occupier present himself as the victim. Not only the victim– the only victim….
‘There is a third very deep rooted value. This is the very deep belief again everyone will deny it but if you scratch under the skin of almost any Israeli you will find it there, the Palestinians are not equal human beings like us. They don’t love their children like us. They don’t love life like us. They were born to kill, they are cruel, they are sadists, they have no values, no manners… This is very, very deep rooted in Israeli society. And maybe that’s the key issue. As long as this continues, nothing will move. We are so much better than them, so much more developed than them, more human than them.’
One of Sydney’s Jewish schools, Moriah College, has as its ‘core values’ (not atypical):
‘We strive to foster critical thought, cultural interests, tolerance, social responsibility and self-discipline. … Moriah not only aspires to achieve excellence in academic standards, but maintains and promotes among its students an awareness of and a feeling for Jewish traditions and ethics, an understanding of and a positive commitment to Orthodox Judaism and identification with and love for Israel.’
Critical thought, tolerance, social responsibility, and identification with and love for Israel? Take your pick. You can’t have both.

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WHO Representative in Lebanon: Gov’t Measures Progressive, Physical Distancing Necessary Even after Lockdown

WHO Representative in Lebanon: Gov’t Measures Progressive, Physical Distancing Necessary Even after Lockdown
https://www.english.alahednews.com.lb/52731/269
Dr. Iman Shankiti, the World Health Organization [WHO] representative in Lebanon, elaborated to al-Ahed, in an exclusive interview, on the country’s current situation regarding the Coronavirus outbreak.
Up until the 23rd of April, Lebanon reported 688 cases and 22 deaths. To date, Lebanon remains in a Level-3 of COVID-19 transmission, experiencing case clusters in specified geographic locations.
“We cannot predict how the events will unfold, however we are working on public health emergency response plans for the different scenarios that Lebanon might face in order to mitigate the possible challenges,” Dr. Shankiti said, adding that the world body will continue its support to the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health [MOPH], “and in the case of an outbreak we will try our best to respond to the health system’s needs in order to cope with any increase in the number of patients.”
Commenting on the response of the Lebanese government and the health ministry, she stressed that the Lebanese Government is taking the necessary measures that will help in containing the spread of the disease.
“UN agencies are working around the clock to support the government on all fronts. Support from the international community is being solicited by UN agencies to enhance the health system’s capacity for a surge in number of cases. The MOPH, with support from WHO, has been taking the necessary measures to enhance the country’s preparedness and response capacity before the first case was detected, and even before WHO declared COVID-19 outbreak as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern,” she explained.
The WHO representative further noted that preparedness and response activities are ongoing as per WHO advice and guidance. Concerned stakeholders are collaborating to coordinate with the MOPH at all time and to respond to requests for advice or support when need arises.
“WHO is supporting the Ministry to ensure good response through numerous activities that include; awareness raising, risk communication, screening at points of entry, detection, testing at RHUH, case management in hospitals, and contact tracing.”
Regarding the lockdown, Dr. Shankiti described the measures taken by the Lebanese government as progressive, adding that one of the main achievements of these measures is the decrease in the number of COVID19 cases registered.
“For the time being we still have COVID-19 cases being detected and the lockdown remains pertinent. The decision to progressively relax the lockdown measures is a government decision and will depend on many factors related to epidemiological data that the MOPH will take into consideration.”
When lockdown measures are stopped, she advised that: “It is important to maintain the physical distancing recommendations. Until now we do not have a specific date in mind to recommend stopping lockdown, the timing will depend on how events will unfold in the coming weeks. WHO is closely monitoring the situation and supporting the MOPH with evidence-based recommendations.”
Back to school?
With respect to the reopening of educational institutions, Dr. Shankiti noted that the WHO regularly attends the inter-ministerial committee meetings that take place at the Prime Minister Office and provides technical advice to the different concerned ministries based on the available evidence.
The decision of reopening educational institutions is a decision to be taken the Lebanese Government based on their assessment of the situation and on the recommendations of the inter-ministerial committee, she stressed, noting that the “WHO advises that even when education institutions will re-open it is critical to abide by the physical distancing recommendations and practices by maintaining at least a meter and a half between a person and another.”
The second wave of COVID-19
Dr. Shankiti concluded that there is a global concern that a second wave might take place since some countries are experiencing another surge in cases after they thought that the virus wasn’t circulating in their population.
Due to the unknown nature of the virus, she said, we cannot be certain that this will happen for sure in Lebanon.
“Our monitoring of the situation, in addition to research currently being conducted by WHO, CDC, scientific, research, and academic institutions will allow us to know more about the virus and its pathogenesis in order to formulate a better idea about possible future scenarios.”

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واشنطن تخسر آخر رهاناتها الاستراتيجيّة




ربما يكون الكثيرون على اعتقاد بأن الاحتباس الذي شهده سوق النفط الآجل في أميركا حالة عابرة، وربما بنى عليه الكثيرون بالمقابل آمالاً بانهيار اقتصادي شامل في أميركا، وكل من الاستنتاجين على قدر عالٍ من التسرع، وبعيد عن فهم حقيقة ما جرى وأبعاده وخلفياته، فالمتفق عليه هو أن الاحتباس في السوق ناجم عن بلوغ موعد البيع الآجل لشهر أيار موعد نهاية عمليات البيع في 20 نيسان، بينما لا تزال كميات ضخمة منه غير مبيعة، بحساب طاقة الإنتاج، والسبب عدم وجود دورة اقتصادية قادرة على الاستيعاب، وإشباع مراكز التخزين بفعل الانخفاض المتواصل منذ شهرين في سوق النفط وبلوغ الأسعار أرقاماً قياسية متدنية، ما حمل بعض حاملي قسائم الشراء يضاربون على المنتجين في التخلي عن قسائمهم لمن يشتريها بسعر منخفض تفادياً لحلول موعد التسليم وهم عاجزون عن تسلّم مستحقاتهم، حيث لا سوق تستهلك ولا مخازن تستوعب، وتخطّي الأزمة تم بشراء الدولة لـ75 مليون برميل ضمّتها إلى مخزوناتها، وتدوير ما تبقى من عرض في السوق لمنتجات أيار إلى معروضات حزيران، التي تنتهي مهل بيعها في 20 أيار.
عند حدود هذا “المتفق عليه” ترد الوقائع التي لم يأخذها المتفائلون بقدرة الاقتصاد الأميركي على تخطيها في حسابهم، والتي بالغ الذين يتوقعون انهياراً اقتصادياً شاملاً بفعلها في اعتبارها مجرد مؤشرات على بلوغ الاقتصاد الأميركيّ الركود الشامل، الذي قد يأتي لاحقاً بفعل استمرار الإغلاق الناتج عن كورونا، لكن ليس بفعل تداعيات ما يجري في السوق النفطية وحدها. وقد سرعت أزمة كورونا تفاعلاتها من ضمن هذا الركود الذي جلبته، وأبرز هذه الوقائع يتصل بكون السوق التي يجري الحديث عنها وتدور الأزمة النفطية حولها، هي سوق النفط الصخري الذي يتركز في غرب تكساس، وهذه السوق ليست عادية لا استراتيجياً ولا اقتصادياً. فالتطلع الأميركي لزعامة العالم جرى ربطه منذ سقوط الاتحاد السوفياتي بالسيطرة الأميركية على سوق الطاقة، بحسابات تشبه رهان الثمانينيات على سباق التسلح وحرب النجوم، الذي انتهى بانهيار الاتحاد السوفياتي.
راهن الأميركيون في العشرية الأولى من القرن الحادي والعشرين على حربي العراق وأفغانستان لتحقيق هدف السيطرة على ما أسموه بحوض قزوين، وإمداد أوروبا من خط نبوكو الآتي من كازاخستان إلى تركيا لحساب السوق الأوروبية، بعد تطويع إيران وشطب موقع العراق، واحتواء سورية. وقد باء هذا الرهان بالفشل وسقط عند تعاظم حضور إيران وإمساكها بمضيق هرمز عنق التجارة النفطية في العالم. وانتقلت المواجهة في العشرية الثانية من القرن على رهان جديد هو السيطرة على سورية، والنجاح بتحقيق فرصة التخلص من مخاطر إغلاق مضيق هرمز، وتوفير إمداد أوروبا بالنفط والغاز عبر الخليج بأنابيب تخترق سورية. وسقط الرهان بثبات وصمود سورية، وتموضع روسيا فيها واستبسال إيران وقوى المقاومة بالدفاع عنها. فبدأ الاستعداد منذ 2017 لإطلاق حصان رهان جديد يفترض أن يبدأ بفرض حضوره في العشرية الثالثة من القرن، والحصان هو النفط والغاز الصخريان، والساحة هي غرب تكساس، حيث نهضت خلال ثلاثة أعوام عشرات آلاف الشركات العاملة في القطاع، واستثمرت الدولة الأميركية وشركات النفط وكبار المستثمرين تريليونات الدولارات في هذا القطاع، والهدف إنتاج كمية عشرة ملايين برميل يومياً، تضخ إلى أوروبا بديلاً من نفط وغاز كل من الخليج وروسيا، بصورة تكون آمنة من مخاطر إغلاق هرمز، وتحكم الطوق على الحضور الروسي، بعدما فشل خط نبوكو، وخط سورية الافتراضي.
الوقائع والأرقام تقول إن الإنتاج بلغ في كانون الثاني من هذا العام رقم 8،7 مليون برميل يومياً من النفط عبر الصخور البركانية، وإن كلفة إنتاج البرميل هي 47 دولاراً، وإن السعر التجاري المناسب لتطور هذا السوق هو 65 دولاراً للبرميل، وإن المخازن الأميركية تتسع لـ580 مليون برميل للنفط الخام، ومثلها للمشتقات النفطية، وإن هذه المخازن العائدة للدولة والقطاع الخاص قد امتلأت، بعدما ضخت إليها الدولة آخر 75 مليون برميل قبل أيام، وبالتالي فإن مواصلة حال الركود ومعها الانخفاض في أسعار النفط إلى دون الثلاثين دولاراً، ستعني فقط مواصلة ما بدأ من شهر ويستمرّ، وهو إفلاس آلاف الشركات وضياع مليارات الدولارات المستثمرة في هذا القطاع. وقد أفلست حتى الآن إحدى عشرة ألف شركة والحبل على الجرار. والقدرة على إنعاش القطاع في ظل أضرار روسية سعودية مشتركة من تضخّمه تبدو مستحيلة، وسعر البرميل لن يعود إلى الستين دولاراً قبل سنتين حسب التقديرات المتفائلة لصندوق النقد الدولي، إذا تعاونت روسيا والسعودية في تجفيف العرض الزائد من السوق، وما جرى مع تسليم استحقاقات أيار سيتكرر مع حزيران وغير حزيران، حتى يجف سوق النفط الصخري ويهوي، ويسقط معه آخر رهانات الاستراتيجية الأميركية للسيطرة على سوق الطاقة، في ظل عروض صينية لعقود طويلة الأجل مع المنتجين الخليجيين على أسعار متوسطة لا تتعدّى الأربعين دولاراً لسنوات مقبلة، فيما تعرض روسيا مبيعاتها الطويلة الأجل في السوق الأوروبية بأسعار موازية.
ما جرى وما سيجري في غرب تكساس، أكبر من مسألة نفطية، وأكبر من مسألة اقتصادية، فهو خسارة حصان رهان استراتيجي، يمكن له إذا تلاقى مع نتائج تفاقم الركود في زمن كورونا، وما يترتب من حال بطالة لأكثر من ثلاثين مليون أميركي، وتراجع للنشاط الاقتصادي لخمسة عشر مليون شركة أميركية مهددة بالإفلاس، أن يتحول إلى أزمة بنيوية، تفتح الطريق لتوقعات دراماتيكية اقتصادية وسياسية واجتماعية، ربما تكون وحدة أميركا على محك التجربة فيها، وربما يكون سباق النفط عكس سباق التسلح الذي انتهى بتفكك الاتحاد السوفياتي، مرشحاً لأن ينتهي بتفكك الولايات المتحدة الأميركية.

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Neo-Ottomanism and Erdogan’s Illusory Sense of Power!

Source
Thursday, 23 April 2020 14:10 
Turkey has placed itself in a strategic dilemma on all sides since it has become at odds with its neighbours in the Middle East, the Balkans, the Caucasus and its allies, in addition to a potential conflict with Russia and Iran over conflicts of interests. 
After 2011, Turkey turned its back on the “Zero Problems” policy, and its actions brought about panic and discontent among its allies, who sought to expel the NATO-country from the military alliance, describing Turkey as an “unreliable ally that pursues its interests selfishly.”
All these conflicts have raised questions about the contradictory nature of Turkish foreign policy: what does Turkey want?
Many political analysts simply say that during Erdogan’s era, Turkish foreign policy embraced the dream of the neo-Ottomans that aimed at restoring the glory of the outdated empire and forming a new identity for Turkey on the basis of religious belief, which may lead to irreversible damage within the Turkish society.
Unlike Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the father of the modern Turkish Republic, Erdogan wants to boost nationalism and the role of Islam in the Turkish state-structure after decades of secularism. 
For this purpose, he has focused on the importance of Ottoman history in his speeches and increased religious education in state schools, that have turned into “Imam Hatip” schools.  These schools are religious secondary education institutions that do not only produce preachers (religious clerics) but also cultivate religious sentiment in their students.
Other critics argued that what is going on in Turkey is not unique and that most people around the world long for the past. They call this movement a policy of nostalgia that ties itself to “memory, not history.”
However, the Western-backed Arab Spring, led by the United States, provided a valuable opportunity for Erdogan, who tried not to waste it and, of course, he didn’t hesitate to risk everything to follow his dream to become the Sultan of the new Islamic world he wants to create.
The turmoil of 2011 that engulfed the Arab countries was good chance to reconstruct the Ottoman Empire. As a result, he rushed to provide support to terrorist organizations such as the Muslim Brotherhood and ISIS, which embraced the nostalgic ideology. He has also worked so hard to install them in the countries that Ottomans once occupied such as Syria, Libya, Egypt, Bosnia and Chechnya  under the pretext of supporting freedom. 
For instance, he supported the former president of Egypt Mohamed Morsi (who was democratically elected and later on toppled due to his extremist policies) An Islamist affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood organisation – and he is still sending Syrian mercenaries to fight in Libya spreading chaos and death in the devastated country. 
In June 2019, Erdogan held a funeral prayer in Istanbul’s ancient Fatih mosque in honour of Morsi, who died during his trial and, of course, he made an impassioned speech glorifying his onetime ally. 
Many videos that made a fuss on social media showed how Turkey sent al-Nusra Front fighters (al-Qaeda linked jihadist group in Syria) to fight as mercenaries in Libya. They are the same fighters who fought the Syrian Arab Army in Idlib and were praised by the Western mainstream media as “moderate rebels” during the Syrian crisis.
Erdogan’s controversially ostentatious character also appeared during the visit of German chancellor Angela Merkel to Istanbul, as photos showed opulent and gilded chairs surrounded by gold. At the time, Social media comments came fast: The Sultan of Turkey on his throne.
Erdogan has staked his reputation, his relationship with his allies and the lives of Turkey’s soldiers, and he is still willing to take the risk for the sake of his illusory sense of Power.
Over the course of Erdogan’s rise to power, Turkey appears to be burning bridges with both allies and opponents and giving signals that it wants to play hard with an increasing number of adversaries.
The truth is that it was always only a matter of time before Erdogan halts “zero problems” policy. 
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