Attack on Spurs fans shows anti-semitism is alive and well
Anti-semitism is the only form of racism that sections of the the left and liberal/left seem willing to contextualise, excuse, “understand,” downplay or even deny altogether. It’s one of the most pervasive leftist urban myths that the charge of anti-semitism is usually raised as a ploy by ”Zionists” in order to deflect criticism of Israel.
When the Guardian recently published a cartoon (above) by Steve Bell that (I believe, inadvertently) recycled a classic anti-semitic trope, and Mark Gardner of the Community Security Trust wrote a very measured letter pointing this out, the response from Graun letter-writers was all too predictable: “Mark Gardner plays the dog-eared antisemitism card” wrote Edward Pearce, “(it’s) the old trick of pretending all criticism of the Israeli government is antisemitic” wrote Mike Scott while one Steve Smart dismissed Gardner’s letter as”preposterous” and people with such concerns as “zealots.”
Whatever you think of the Bell cartoon, can you imagine the charge of racism being dismisssed in such terms by liberals in any other context? Bell’s own response was particularly disappointing.
Well, smug Guardian readers and cartoonists who refuse to recognise anti-semitism as a real issue, may like to consider what happened in Rome on Thursday, when a grooup of Tottenham Hotspur fans were attacked by a masked gang armed with knives, knuckle-dusters and batons, shouting “Jews!” Whether or not any of the victims were, in fact, Jewish is neither here nor there: Spurs is a club that traditionally has a large Jewish following and has come to symbolise the London Jewish community. The question of whether the attackers, Italian football hooligans, had any serious political motivation, is also largely academic. In the tribal world of soccer, apolitical abuse and conscious racism merge into one and the same thing. At the game itself, Lazio fans chanted “Juden Tottenham” and unfurled a “Free Palestine” banner. Similar scenes of Jew-baiting (and the same banner? See video below) were seen at a women’s match in Edinburgh this June when Israel played Scotland. The Jew-baiting was at least partially organised by the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign and lovingly reported at the Socialist Unity website.
The saddest part of all this is that it does nothing to help the just cause of the Palestinians, but certainly helps alienate and antagonise Jews everywhere. Guardianistas and football supporters who regard the situation in the Middle East as merely an excuse for tribalism and hooliganism, are singing from the same anti-semitic hymn sheet.
[As we were saying: 'What is left anti-semitism?']
[Jonathan Freedland -in the Graun ! - denounces those who treat the Israel/Palestine conflict as though it's a football match]
Stan Greig: jazz and blues piano master
Stanley Mackay Greig, 12 Aug 1930 – 18 Nov 2012
Stan Greig had been ill with Parkinson’s for many years, so his passing was not altogether unexpected. But it still comes as a tremendous loss to the traditional and mainstream jazz scene in Britain and internationally.
Stan started out on piano and drums in Edinburgh in the early 1950′s, playing with clarinettist Sandy Brown and trumpeter Al Fairweather, both of whom became long-term musical associates and personal friends of his. They admired (and modelled their playing upon) the music of Louis Armstrong, King Oliver and Johnny Dodds from the 1920′s, and although all three would soon broaden their musical horizons, none of them ever completely lost those early influences.
When Stan moved down to London he began working with Ken Colyer’s New Orleans-style band and then Humphrey Lyttelton’s rather more forward-looking outfit, in both cases as a drummer. It’s Stan who’s brushing away behind Johnny Parker’s piano on Humph’s 1956 boogie woogie hit Bad Penny Blues. One can only speculate about how Stan felt about his role on that record, given that his true forte, even then, was as a pianist (and a boogie specialist at that). When Stan was called up in the Suez crisis, Humph replaced him with the more modern drummer Eddie Taylor. On his return, Humph (by his own account) went through agonies in terms of loyalties, using both drummers in turn for a while before Stan solved the problem for him and left the band, joining Acker Bilk. He can be seen, shuffling from the piano to the drums and back again, with Acker’s band in this clip (below) from the 1962 film It’s Trad, Dad!:
Some years later (in the 1980′s) Stan re-joined Humph’s band, this time on piano and it was during this period that I had the tremendous pleasure and privilege of playing with him on a couple of memorable (for me, at least) occasions. The trombonist in that band, Pete Strange, told me that he thought Humph felt he “owed” Stan because of what had happened in the fifties.
Stan was a great player in quite a wide range of styles, but really excelled at boogie woogie, a style that can sound hackneyed and repetative. But not when Stan played:
Good obit from Peter Vacher in the Graun, here
Petition for the release of Greek trade unionists
From comrades in Greece:
Please, sign the following petition:
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/agwnas/
On November 16th 2012 the police arrested three unionists accusing them of
participating in the protests against the German deputy labor minister,
Fuchtel, in Thessaloniki the day before. Two of the arrestees are municipal workers and the
third one is a primary-school teacher – known figure of the Left and the
Labour movement as well as an elected member of the teacher’s Union Board.
The teacher was arrested within the premises of his school and in front of
his pupils. All three, were sent to court the day after. According to the
prosecutor’s decision the process was closed for the public. The solidarity
mobilization for the three arrestees was massive and the trial has been
postponed for December 19th. One day later, during the demonstrations for
the commemoration of the people’s revolt against the dictatorship in 1973,
sixteen young people were arrested when the police invaded the University
in a brutal way.
This is a petition in support of the three unionists and the sixteen young
people, who are prosecuted because of their participation in the
mobilizations in Thessaloniki against the visiting German deputy labor
minister, Fuchtel, and the demonstration for the commemoration of the
people’s revolt against the dictatorship in 1973. The following statement
was announced in the three unionists’ trial, on Monday 19 November.
*this petition has already been signed by thousands including:
Manolis Glezos, significant figure of the Left since the 2nd World War,
Bitsakis Eftichis, distinguished university professor,
the elected members of Parliament for SYRIZA Panagiotis Lafazanis and Nikos
Voutsis,
Alekos Alavanos, known figure of the Left in Greece
Dimitris Kaltsonis, left-wing academic, theorist and writer
and Aggelos Chagios and Dimitris Desylas, members of the Front of the Greek
Anti-Capitalist Left (ANTARSYA) *
PEOPLE HAVE THE RIGHT TO FIGHT
On November 17th 2012, thirty-nine years after the Greek people revolted
against the military junta (dictatorship) demanding bread, education, and
freedom, the arrest and forced trial of three union activists in
Thessaloniki, with the hypocritical and unsubstantiated criminal charges of
“illegal violence” as well as the similar treatment of sixteen youth
arrested inside the University after the demonstrations for the
commemorations of the events in the Polytechnic School in Athens,
constitute an insult to our historical memory.
We want to stress the serious responsibility of the government which, in an
attempt to implement at all costs its anti-popular politics, assumes the
responsibility of an open anti-democratic political assault, targeting
those political liberties achieved through struggle and bloodshed. The
constant heightening of state repression, police abuse, torture of
protesters at the Central Police Headquarters in Athens, employers’ terror
in workplaces, racist pogroms, and state support of Nazi and fascist gangs
make up the “arsenal” they use against the popular workers movement in an
attempt to subjugate them.
People’s right to fight remains non-negotiable, particularly at a time when
civil rights, democracy and people’s rule are at gunpoint. The fact that
the arrests followed almost immediately after German Chancellor Merkel’s
statements about “violence in Greece” is revealing. Was such the eagerness
and subservience to please our partners-lenders-prosecutors?
We invite all political forces, unions, organizations and other
stakeholders to mobilize immediately towards a common coordinated struggle
to subvert the terrorization of workers’ struggles that is reminiscent of
the darkest times of this country’s history.
WE DEMAND THAT ALL ARRESTED UNION ACTIVISTS AND YOUTH ARE SET FREE AND THAT
THEIR UNACCEPTABLE PROSECUTION CEASES
Israeli trade union statement on the war
The following statement from the independent Israeli trade union WAC-MAAN was written before the ceasefire. But the politics of the statement and its analysis of the forces at work during the war, have been fully vindicated by events. It is also a useful antidote to those (like many in the UK Palestine solidarity movement) who write off the Israeli working class and trade union movement:
WAC-MAAN calls for an end to the war on Gaza, an end to the Israeli occupation, and a two-state solution based on the 1967 borders.
The Israeli military operations that started in Gaza on Wednesday, November 14, 2012, are a result of four years of time-wasting by Netanyahu’s right-wing government. The Netanyahu government has persistently refused to negotiate with the Palestinians on withdrawal from the West Bank and East Jerusalem. It has continued to expand settlements on Palestinian lands, while allowing the development of fascist gangs in these settlements.
With the peace process in deep coma, we now reach another round of violence that will not solve anything. The Israeli leaders declare that they are defending their citizens in the south, but everyone knows, in fact, that the current war can produce no more than a temporary truce. Israel’s plan is to keep Gaza separate from the West Bank, canceling any prospect of a solution while annexing the West Bank de facto. As Hamas agrees to this separation so as to keep Gaza under its own control it is a partner that Netanyhu accepts. The war is waged to terrorize the people and to push Hamas to the corner that Israel accepts.
Moreover, under cover of this war, Netanyahu’s government seeks to deflect the public’s attention from the social needs of ordinary Israelis, especially those in the south, needs which have become all the more severe since the selling of the nation’s assets to some twenty wealthy families.
In parts of Tel Aviv you might think you’re in Beverly Hills, but what one sees today in the Jewish and Arab towns of the Negev is poverty, unemployment, and the retrenchment of public services. It is well known that Netanyahu is planning a draconian austerity program. Fearful of losing votes in the coming elections, he is trying to upend the agenda by pursuing a needless war that has already led to dozens of dead and is far from over.
As an independent trade union uniting Jewish and Arab workers on an equal basis, we cannot stand indifferent to this bloody war that drags workers into supporting their real class enemy. We stand today with our Palestinian brothers and sisters – the workers and the poor in Gaza and the West Bank – who are paying this war’s heaviest price.
We all know that the war’s sole beneficiaries are the rightwing government in Israel and the Hamas government in Gaza, both of whom refuse to negotiate. The extremism continues to thrive while the workers on both sides of the 1967 lines are suffering.
It is in the tradition of the labour movement that we stand against war and for the brotherhood of Palestinian and Israeli workers. We call upon the international labour movement to take the lead in demanding a cease fire in Gaza; to take a firm stand against the Israeli occupation; and to demand progress toward a peaceful solution based on the establishment of a an independent Palestine with Jerusalem as its capital. Only when these demands are met will we be able to build our two countries, providing people with decent jobs, education and health, no longer spending billions on wars that lead nowhere.
**************************************************************************************************
NB: Uri Avnery’s take on of the outcome of the war, here
Terry Liddle: farewell, Comrade
“Comrades when I’m dead and gone, no more than dust on the breeze
I beg you grant me one last wish, comrades do this for me please
Raise a glass of the blood red wine or a mug of the barley brew
Bid farewell to your comrade, one of the foolish few
Who thought we could rearrange the world, dreamed we could make all things new.”
Bruce reports:
Terry Liddle (above) died on November 17th aged 64. Comrades may remember Terry as active in the Socialist Alliance and its successor groups.
Terry’s political career started in the YCL (Young Communist League) in the early 60s followed, I think, by a brief stint in the Healyites. When I first met him in about 1968, he was involved in one of many attempts to take over the rump ILP (Independent Labour Party). He was a libertarian socialist who subsequently joined a variety of Council Communist groups.
He spent most of his activity in recent years on secularist / atheist activities, setting up the Freethought History Research Group.
He had been ill for a long time.
Nice tribute from Coatesy, here
Jim D adds: Terry wrote poetry and, in one of his poems (‘Death Song’, quoted from above) calls on his comrades to raise a glass of wine or ale to his memory when he dies and is no more than ”dust on the breeze.” I’m doing exactly as he instructed, right now.
Netanyahu and Haniyeh: the common denominator
Reblogged from the Israeli site, Challenge
by Yacov Ben Efrat
What do the top leaders of Israel and Hamas have in common? They share the same enemy: PA President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen). Abbas embodies all that Ismail Haniyeh despises: secularism and compromise with Israel. Benjamin Netanyahu, for his part, hates Abbas because his moderation threatens Israel’s control of the West Bank. Abbas wants to achieve peace with Israel on the basis of the 1967 lines, including dismantlement of the settlements. He threatens Netanyahu’s political future, for in paying the price of peace, the Israeli PM would have to part from his extremist right-wing allies, as well as the Land of the Patriarchs.
Netanyahu and Haniyeh, who have led their citizens into yet another round of bloodletting, share something else in common: their tacit agreement concerning the fate of the Gaza Strip, and in consequence of the West Bank too. Netanyahu greatly loves the schism within Palestinian ranks between Hamas and Fatah. It gives him a marvelous pretext to continue his mantra that “There is no partner for peace.” Haniyeh, for his part, in order to preserve the separate status of Gaza, deepens the rift with Fatah at every opportunity, ever seeking ways to destroy the “partner,” Abbas.
The real partners, then, are Netanyahu and Haniyeh, and they know it. Neither believes in peace. Haniyeh repeats ad nauseam that he will never recognize Israel. Netanyahu, though compelled by Obama to utter the words “two states,” has clearly demonstrated by his behavior that he will never recognize a Palestinian state. The ideal for both is not peace, rather an amorphous situation that goes by various names, such as hudna, tahdiyya, cease fire, or mutual deterrence.
Like Siamese twins
These things came to clear expression in a speech of Haniyeh’s on the second day of the current conflict. The TV channels hyped it in advance. We waited in suspense: Haniyeh’s words would no doubt determine the fates of people on both sides of the Gaza fence. At precisely 8:00 p.m., the man appeared, features somber and tense. For the first twenty minutes of his half-hour speech, he eulogized Ahmad Ja’abri, the Hamas commander whose assassination by Israel sparked the current round; he heaped praise on the other Hamas martyrs as well. In the remaining ten minutes he praised Egypt for its energetic steps, which amounted, in fact, only to the recall of its ambassador from Tel Aviv and the sending of its prime minister, Hisham Kandil, for a visit on the following day. Haniyeh included himself in the Arab Spring with the rest of the Muslim Brotherhood. He had only one more thing to ask of Egypt. Not the cancellation of its peace with Israel, not to threaten war, only this: to open the Rafah Crossing (the border point in Sinai between Egypt and Gaza).
Haniyeh’s speech showed what he was aiming for. He made no mention of a Palestinian state. He didn’t threaten to turn to the United Nations for international recognition. Nor did he bother to appeal to the entire Palestinian people. In fact, when he named the Palestinian martyrs, he mentioned Ahmad Yassin and Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi, but he had no word for the PLO leaders who had likewise been murdered by Israel, such as Fatah founder Abu Jihad, author Ghassan Kanafani, and Abu Ali Mustafa, leader of the Popular Front. Palestinian history according to Haniyeh began with Hamas, whose mission is to establish the State of Gaza, which is slowly gaining recognition.
In tandem with Haniyeh’s speech, the Israeli TV studios hosted Likud ministers who were sent to justify the operation, which Israel calls “Pillar of Smoke” (Exodus 13:21). Their job was to blur the facts and mobilize the public for this new round. Yisrael Katz, who is coordinated with Netanyahu, explained that the operation’s purpose is not to unseat the Hamas regime, but to arrive at a long period of quiet like that on the Lebanese border since 2006. Katz claimed that Israel needs gradually to stop supplying Gaza with electricity and fuel, as well as essential products. That is exactly what Haniyeh demands from Egypt: Open the Rafah Crossing for the passage of goods and people to Egypt, and then the border between Gaza and Israel will be quieter.
We should note that whenever the Likudniks appear in a studio, the Opposition is also invited—an election campaign is on, after all, so time must be apportioned equally. As expected, the representatives of the “opposition” express total support for the government’s military moves, while trying nonetheless to insert now and then a shy little word for peace. They agree that it’s important to impose a long-term cease-fire on Hamas, but if one wants to solve the problem and prevent the renewal of warfare, one should talk to Abbas and reach a comprehensive solution. The Likudniks, in turn, break into the “opposition’s” remarks with phrases like, “What’s the connection?” or “We won’t do Abu Mazen’s job and overthrow Hamas,” and of course, “Abu Mazen is weak and doesn’t have control, so there’s no one to talk to.”
It isn’t so easy
These then are Siamese twins: the Israeli Right, which hopes to perpetuate its rule in the West Bank, and Islamic fundamentalism, which hopes to perpetuate its rule in Gaza. There is, however, a fly in the ointment. In order for this common dream to be realized, the Rafah Crossing must be opened, freeing Israel from the yoke of Hamas and Hamas from dependency on Israel. Without Egypt that won’t happen. The opening of Rafah would mean the political demise of Abbas and the Palestinian Authority (PA), hence the death of the never-born Palestinian state. Netanyahu’s desire is the nightmare of Egypt’s President Muhammad Morsi, who conditions the opening of Rafah on the reconciliation of Hamas and Fatah, of Haniyeh and Abbas, so that the Crossing will come under PA control.
Thus everything comes back to Abbas, the non-partner, the irrelevant and impotent butt of ridicule. The Americans, the Europeans, and the Egyptians understand very well that the de facto recognition of Hamas will prolong the conflict in the West Bank. It will cement the fundamentalist group’s control of Gaza, while the Palestinian question will continue to bubble and endanger the region.
Four years ago, just before Israel launched Operation Cast Lead, Hamas accused the Mubarak regime of collaborating with the Occupation because it refused to open the Rafah Crossing. Today the issue of Rafah remains unresolved, despite the fact that Mubarak has been replaced by the Muslim Brotherhood.
The key to a solution in Gaza does not depend on broadening the military operations. Seventy thousand Israeli soldiers won’t do the trick, and like Cast Lead, this Pillar of Smoke will disperse. The only way to secure calm in the south, as well as in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, is to resolve the conflict with the Palestinians. Four years ago, after the conclusion of Cast Lead, I wrote the following in a piece called, “Israel and Hamas Won, So Who Lost?”:
“Today, when the truth is clear to all—that a solution requires return to the 1967 borders—Olmert, Barak and Netanyahu do all they can to shirk an agreement. The Israeli leadership refuses to negotiate about East Jerusalem or the Golan Heights. It continues to finance the settlers. The ineluctable result of this policy will be more blood, without justification, point or aim.”
Four years later, amid sirens and blasts, these words again become relevant. Operation Cast Lead, headed by Olmert and Livni, brought Netanyahu to power. Today, as elections approach, it is upon everyone who wants to build an alternative to the fundamentalist right wing, and prevent more wars, to proclaim loud and clear: Stop this war, end the Occupation, tear down the settlements, and at last make peace!
H/t: Andy Newman
The Brit Left and the EU: sleepwalking towards racism and nationalism
Will the “left” play into Gove’s hands on Europe?
Since the 1960′s it has been an article of faith for most of the British left to sort-of oppose the EU and its foreunners, starting with the Common Market. The basis of this ‘sort-of’ opposition has sometimes been superficially leftist (“it’s a bosses club,” etc), sometimes psuedo-democratic (“Brussels bureaucrats,” etc), but always fundamentally foolish and reactionary: based on the ludicrous notion that separating a country from the rest of Europe will insulate it from the laws and trends of global capitalism. Very occasionally, the more fanatical of the “left” opponents of the EU let slip their real agenda: a Westphalian defence of the nation state and opposition to all forms of supranationalism.
The results of this confusion on the “left” have usually been pretty irrelevant, as the anti-EU agenda has always been set by the nationalists and racists of the hard-right. But it has resulted in grotesque spectacles like the No2EU campaign, the Socialist Party and the RMT supporting the People’s Pledge, an anti-EU campaign drawn up by right-wing Tories.
There is some evidence to suggest that the saner (or more cynical, depending on how you look at it) elements of the anti-EU “left” are aware of what a foolish stance they’ve adopted, and are doing so mainly for opportunistic reasons. But, opportunist or not, the anti-EU “left” seems likely to soon be put on the spot. With the eurosceptic Tory right (encouraged by Michael Gove) on the offensive and polls showing a majority of UK voters wanting to exit, Cameron seems almost certain to go into the next election offering a referendum on continued membership. And given Miliband’s craven appeasement of the eurosceptic right, Labour may well do the same. Then it will be make-your-mind-up-time for the UK’s anti-EU “left.”
I described the UK “left” opposition to Europe as “sort-of” opposition because it rarely spells out where it stands on the central issues: do they welcome and support the re-erection of barriers between nation-states and a “repatriation” of powers, resulting in the abolition of swathes of employment protection legislation? Most of the anti-EU “left” limits itself to “no to the bosses’ Europe” sloganising, thus avoiding the central issue. They have their cake and eat it: they chime in with populist-nationalist sentiment amongst the most backward sections of society (including lumpen elements of the working class) while suggesting that they’re not really anti-European, just against the “bosses’” character of the EU.
As if the EU is somehow less capitalist, anti-worker and neo-liberal than its component member states. In Britain more than any other EU country we have seen successive governments, Labour and Tory, repeatedly objecting to EU policy and legislation as as too soft, too “social”, too concerned with civil liberties and workers’ employment rights. That wilkl be the basis upon which the anti-EU camapaign around a referedum will be conducted.
So now we have to ask the idiot -”left”: do you really want to see the EU broken up? Think about the consequences seriously, for once in your lives.
The freedom for workers to move across Europe would be lost. “Foreign” workers in each country from other ex-EU states would face massively increased, and state-approved, racism.
There would be a big reduction in the productive capacities of the separate states, cut off from broader economic arenas.
Governments and employers in each state would be weaker in capitalist world-market competition, and thus would be pushed towards crude cost-cutting, in the same way that small capitalist businesses, more fragile in competition, use cruder cost-cutting than the bigger employers.
There would be more slumps and depression, in the same way that the raising of economic barriers between states in the 1930s lengthened and deepened the slump then.
Nationalist and far-right forces, already the leaders of anti-EU political discourse everywhere, would be “vindicated” and boosted. Democracy would shrink, not expand. The economically-weaker states in Europe, cut off from the EU aid which has helped them narrow the gap a bit, would suffer worst, and probably some would fall to military dictatorships.
Before long the economic tensions between the different nations competing elbow-to-elbow in Europe’s narrow cockpit would lead to war, as they did repeatedly for centuries, and especially in 1914 and 1939.
The left should fight, not to go backwards from the current bureaucratic, neo-liberal European Union, but forward, towards workers’ unity across Europe, a democratic United States of Europe, and a socialist United States of Europe.
Avneri: how Hamas walked into Netanyahu’s trap
By Uri Avneri of Gush Shalom
HOW DID it start? Stupid question.
Conflagrations along the Gaza Strip don’t start. They are just a continuous chain of events, each claimed to be in “retaliation” for the previous one. Action is followed by reaction, which is followed by retaliation, which is followed by …
This particular event “started” with the firing from Gaza of an anti-tank weapon at a partially armored jeep on the Israeli side of the border fence. It was described as retaliation for the killing of a boy in an air attack some days earlier. But probably the timing of the action was accidental – the opportunity just presented itself.
The success gave rise to demonstrations of joy and pride in Gaza. Again Palestinians had shown their ability to strike at the hated enemy.
HOWEVER, THE Palestinians had in fact walked into a trap prepared with great care. Whether the order was given by Hamas or one of the smaller more extreme organizations – it was not a clever thing to do.
Shooting across the fence at an army vehicle was crossing a red line. (The Middle East is full of red lines.) A major Israeli reaction was sure to ensue.
It was rather routine. Israeli tanks fired cannon shells into the Gaza Strip. Hamas launched rockets at Israeli towns and villages. Hundreds of thousands of Israelis rushed to their shelters. Schools closed.
As usual, Egyptian and other mediators went into action. Behind the scenes, a new truce was arranged. It seemed to be over. Just another round.
The Israeli side did everything to get back to normal. Or so it seemed. The Prime Minister and the Defense Minister went out of their way (to the Syrian border) to show that Gaza was off their minds.
In Gaza, everybody relaxed. They left their shelters. Their supreme military commander, Ahmad Ja’abari, climbed into his car and drove along the main street.
And then the trap closed. The car bearing the commander was blown up by a missile from the air.
SUCH AN assassination is not carried out on the spur of the moment. It is the culmination of many months of preparation, gathering of information, waiting for the right moment, when it could be executed without killing many bystanders and causing an international scandal.
Actually, it was due to take place a day earlier, but postponed because of the bad weather.
Ja’abari was the man behind all the military activities of the Hamas government in Gaza, including the capture of Gilad Shalit and the successful five-year long hiding of his whereabouts. He was photographed at the release of Shalit to the Egyptians.
So this time it was the Israelis who were jubilant. Much like the Americans after the Osama bin-Laden assassination.
THE KILLING of Ja’abari was the sign for starting the planned operation.
The Gaza Strip is full of missiles. Some of them are able to reach Tel Aviv, some 40 km away. The Israeli military has long planned a major operation to destroy as many of them as possible from the air. Intelligence has patiently gathered information about their location. This is the purpose of the “Pillar of Cloud”operation. (“And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud, to lead them the way – Exodus 13:21).
While I am writing this, I don’t know yet how the whole thing will end. But some conclusions can already be drawn.
FIRST OF All, this is not Cast Lead II. Far from it.
The Israeli army is rather good at discreetly drawing lessons from its failures. Cast Lead was celebrated as a great success, but in reality it was a disaster.
Sending troops into a densely populated area is bound to cause heavy civilian casualties. War crimes are almost inevitable. World reaction was catastrophic. The political damage immense. The Chief of Staff at the time, Gabi Ashkenazi, was widely acclaimed, but in reality he was a rather primitive military type. His present successor is of a different caliber.
Also, grandiose statements about destroying Hamas and turning the Strip over to the Ramallah leadership have been avoided this time.
The Israeli aim, it was stated, is to cause maximum damage to Hamas with minimum civilian victims. It was hoped that this could be achieved almost entirely by the use of air power. In the first phase of the operation, this seems to have succeeded. The question is whether this can be kept up as the war goes on.
HOW WILL it end? It would be foolhardy to guess. Wars have their own logic. Stuff happens, as the man said.
Binyamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak, the two men in overall command, hope the war will wind down once the main aims are achieved. So there will be no reason to employ the army on the ground, enter the Gaza Strip, kill people, lose soldiers.
Deterrence will be restored. Another truce will come into force. The Israeli population surrounding the Strip will be able to sleep soundly at night for several months. Hamas will be cut down to size.
But will this whole exercise change the basic situation? Not likely.
Ja’abari will be replaced. Israel has assassinated dozens of Arab political and military leaders. Indeed, it is the world champion of such assassinations, politely referred to as “targeted preventions” or “eliminations”. If this were an Olympic sport, the Ministry of Defense, the Mossad and the Shin Bet would be festooned with gold medals.
Sometimes one gets the impression that the assassinations are an aim in themselves, and the other operations just incidental. An artist is proud of his art.
What have the results been ? Overall – nothing positive. Israel killed Hizbollah leader Abbas al-Moussawi, and got the vastly more intelligent Hassan Nasrallah instead. They killed Hamas founder Sheik Ahmad Yassin, and he was replaced by abler men. Ja’abari’s successor may be less or more able. It will make no great difference.
Will it stop the steady advance of Hamas? I doubt it. Perhaps the opposite will happen. Hamas has already achieved a significant breakthrough, when the Emir of Qatar (owner of Aljazeera) paid Gaza a state visit. He was the first head of state to do so. Others are bound to follow. Just now, in the middle of the operation, the Egyptian prime minister arrived in Gaza.
Operation“Pillar of Cloud” compels all Arab countries to rally around Hamas, or at least pretend to. It discredits the claim of the more extreme organizations in Gaza that Hamas has gone soft and lazy, enjoying the fruits of government. In the battle for Palestinian opinion, Hamas has gained another victory over Mahmoud Abbas, whose security cooperation with Israel will look even more despicable.
All in all, nothing basic will change. Just another superfluous war.
IT IS, of course, a highly political event.
Like Cast Lead, it takes place on the eve of Israeli elections. (So, by the way, did the Yom Kippur war, but that was decided by the other side.)
One of the more miserable sights of the last few days has been the TV appearances of Shelly Yachimovich and Ya’ir Lapid. The two shining new stars in Israel’s political firmament looked like petty politicians, parroting Netanyahu’s propaganda, approving everything done.
Both had hitched their wagons to the social protest, expecting that social issues would displace subjects like war, occupation and settlements from the agenda. When the public is occupied with the price of cottage cheese, who cares about national policy?
I said at the time that one whiff of military action would blow away all economic and social issues as frivolous and irrelevant. This has happened now.
Netanyahu and Barak appear many times a day on the screen. They look responsible, sober, determined, experienced. Real he-men, commanding troops, shaping events, saving the nation, routing the enemies of Israel and the entire Jewish people. As Lapid volunteered on live television: “Hamas is an anti-Semitic terrorist organization and must be crushed.”
Netanyahu is doing it. Adieu, Lapid. Adieu Shelly. Adieu Olmert. Adieu Tzipi. Was nice seeing you.
WAS THERE an alternative? Obviously, the situation along the Gaza Strip had become intolerable. One cannot send an entire population to the shelters every two or three weeks. Except hitting Hamas on the head, what can you do?
A lot.
First of all, you can abstain from“reacting”. Just cut the chain.
Then, you can talk with Hamas as the de facto government of Gaza. You did, actually, when negotiating the release of Shalit. So why not look for a permanent modus vivendi, with the involvement of Egypt?
A hudna can be achieved. In Arab culture, a hudna is a binding truce, sanctified by Allah, which can go on for many years. A hudna cannot be violated. Even the Crusaders concluded hudnas with their Muslim enemies.
The day after the assassination, Israeli peace activist Gershon Baskin, who had been involved in mediating Shalit’s release, disclosed that he had been in contact with Ja’abari up to the last moment. Ja’abari had been interested in a long-term cease-fire. The Israeli authorities had been informed.
But the real remedy is peace. Peace with the Palestinian people. Hamas has already solemnly declared that it would respect a peace agreement concluded by the PLO –i.e. Mahmoud Abbas – that would establish a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders, provided this agreement were confirmed in a Palestinian referendum.
Without it, the bloodletting will just go on, round after round. Forever.
Peace is the answer. But when visibility is obscured by pillars of cloud, who can see that ?
Chinese ruling class shuffle the pack
Adapted (by Jim Denham) from an article originally written before the announcement of the new leadership, by Camila Bassi
One in five of the world’s populace now have new leaders for a decade’s term.
The 18th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was an assembly of the ruling class so tightly regulated that all that China’s people and the rest of the world saw was a well-orchestrated display of bureaucratic power.
Behind-the-scenes faction fights between the elites within the Party had already been settled for the sake of the ruling class’s survival.
The previous Vice-President Xi Jinping (a candidate accceptable to all of the Party’s factions) succeeded Hu Jintao as leader of the CCP.
After Xi and the No. 2 official, Li Keqiang, who becomes premier, the other top officials on the ageing Politburo Standing Committee, in order of their new rank, are Zhang Dejiang, 66, a North Korean-trained economist now running Chongqing; Yu Zhengsheng, 67, the Shanghai party boss; and Liu Yunshan, 65, the head of the Communist Party’s propaganda department, which is in charge of censorship. The final two on the seven-member committee are Wang Qishan, 64, known for his economic management skills, who will be in charge of anti-corruption efforts as head of the party’s discipline commission in the new government; and Zhang Gaoli, 66, the party boss in Tianjin.
Now seems an apt moment to pose the question, what defines the present political moment in China? I’ll provide a response through seven key observations.
1. The Princelings, the Populists, and the Bo Xilai affair
Two defining factions at the top of the CCP are the “princelings” and the “populists”.
The princelings tend to have familial roots in the Party and geographical origins in the economically prosperous coastal areas of the country. They are seen to represent business interests.
The populists tend to have climbed the ranks of the Party and to have come from more inland (poorer) Chinese provinces. They are perceived to speak more for the vulnerable social interest groups.
Bo Xilai, while head of Chongqing, had ambitions for the Politburo Standing Committee. Bo (a princeling) represented — through the since-coined Chongqing Model — one avenue for more general political reform in China. In this major city he drove through a combination of high state control, which included a high-profile (but selective) clampdown on organised crime, the promotion of Maoist “red culture”, and the courting of foreign investment alongside large-scale public provision.
Bo’s downfall came from the death of a British businessman and his related corrupt business dealings, but also from factional fighting and his challenge to Party convention. The significance? The reaction of many of the populace, which questioned the deep-seated corrupt nature of the Party itself and how Bo had risen to such prominence.
His downfall was the biggest event in China since the 1989 revolutionary uprisings centred on Tiananmen Square. With approximately 500 million Chinese netizens, the Party cannot control everyday life as it once could.
2. Troubled times for the Chinese economy
China’s economic growth has been slowing down for seven consecutive quarters and this year it will have the slowest economic growth rate since 1999.
The huge spending package launched in 2008 has, it is estimated, led to the building of half of all of the country’s physical assets within the last six years.
The “inevitable side effects of that stimulus — non-performing loans and potentially deflationary overcapacity — have not yet taken hold” (Pilling, 2012). Take housing as an example. About 30% of the country’s housing stock is currently lying empty. If we add to this that the economy has still to be rebalanced by the CCP from investment to consumption, and the economy’s dependence on exports to a recession-hit Europe, troubled days surely lie ahead.
3. working class protest and militancy
As surveyed in my article in Solidarity 258, both the quantity of working class protests in China has significantly increased this century and the qualitative nature has changed, with these protests becoming more militant.
As previously noted: “Whilst worker protests in the early 2000s predominantly involved laid-off workers from state-owned enterprises and rural migrants employed in the private sector, by the end of the decade a new group, or a ‘new generation’, emerged. Those born in the 1980s and 1990s have altered the nature of the migrant worker to one younger, better educated, more connected, and with higher expectations and more willingness to take on proactive demands.”
4. The rise of “middle class” discontent
This is less militant. So-called “middle class” protest in China is more about better government than the overthrow of the existing one. But the rise in discontent amongst middle-income Chinese includes currents desiring some form of bourgeois democracy.
Intense political discontents on housing, health, education, and the environment, are all fundamentally driven by a concern that the CCP pursuit of economic growth is at the expense of ordinary people.
The recent NIMBY protest in Ningbo against a petrochemical plant led to a concession by the local government to stop the plant’s expansion. This decision can be explained both by the fact that it occurred in the run up to the 18th Congress, during which the Party seeks an especially compliant population, and by the Party’s more general strategy (unlike the more violent one towards militant working class demands) of keeping the peace by piecemeal allowances.
5. Anxious maintenance of internal stability
Based on observations 1, 2, 3 and 4, an increasingly more assertive Chinese population — able and willing to take on its government — might well indicate that China is on the verge of a revolution.
One further factor needs to be brought into play for such an assessment, which is the ability of the CCP to (in its own words) “maintain internal stability”.
The Ministry of Public Security records the number of “mass incidents” rising from 8,700 in 1993, 32,000 in 1999, 50,000 in 2002, and at present 100,000 annually. More to the point, the Party is increasingly serious (paranoid even) about keeping control; currently spending as much if not more on the maintenance of internal stability than its defence force.
So, while my article in Solidarity 231 assesses the potential of an inspiring struggle against land seizures and for local democracy in Wukan village, any suggestion of meaningful political reform is tempered by the introduction of militias in Wukan since August of this year. This reflects, more generally across China, “the newest incarnation of a venerable approach to population control and social management” (Wagner, 2012).
6. The Sino-Japanese islands dispute and Chinese nationalism
The CCP is creating new facts on the water in its long-running maritime disputes with the Philippines and Japan.
Could this situation escalate further and draw China, Japan and the United States into a war? It cannot be ruled out.
Not unrelated is the nature and volatility of Chinese nationalism, which has deeply embedded within it a popular anti-Japanese racism, as seen in the recent wave of anti-Japanese demonstrations across the country. Herein lies a means for the CCP to unify the populace and distract them from the problems within by the problems without.
7. China in Africa
Pepe Escobar of the Asia Times (21 October) states: “The big picture remains the Pentagon’s AFRICOM spreading its militarized tentacles against the lure of Chinese soft power in Africa, which goes something like this: in exchange for oil and minerals, we build anything you want, and we don’t try to sell you ‘democracy for dummies’.”
A widespread view on the left, based on observations like this, is that US imperialism is the big bad evil, while China remains a palatable alternative. A serious assessment of Chinese imperialism is avoided.
China is now Africa’s largest trading partner and lends the continent more money than the World Bank. Chinese companies have entered profitable oil markets in, for instance, Angola, Nigeria, Algeria and Sudan, made big mining deals in countries like Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and are constructing what is claimed to be the world’s biggest iron mine in Gabon; additionally, land is being sought for large-scale agribusinesses, and physical infrastructure — to swiftly move capital and labour — is rapidly developing (French, 2012).
In terms of global geopolitics and imperialism, we need to take stock of what this means.
It is not so much the implications of any one of these observations but rather the consequences of them all climaxing and cumulating which makes China’s present moment so critical. Watch this space.
References
Associated Press (2012) ‘Successful pollution protest shows China takes careful line with rising middle class’. The Washington Post.
Bassi, C (2012) ‘China’s new worker militants’. Solidarity 258.
Bassi, C (2012) ‘Chinese workers fight for democracy’. Solidarity 231.
BBC (2012) ‘China’. BBC World Online.
French, H (2012) ‘The Next Empire’. The Atlantic.
Pilling, D (2012) ‘Xi should draw up a new social contract for China’. Financial Times.
Wagner, D (2012) ‘The Rise of the Chinese Urban Militias’. Huffington Post.
Gig for Pussy Riot
Gig for Pussy Riot
Sunday 18th November 7pm
Parlour Bar, 142 Duke Street, Edinburgh.
A night of satire, spoken word, punk poetry and stand up comedy. With DJs.
Two spoken word sets from Kevin Williamson, Rodney Relax, Jess Hopkins,
Stewart Hogg and Rachel McCrum, Maze McPunklet, Rosie Bell, Rebecca
Mason.
Music and comedy from Tommy Reckless McKay, Liz Cronin, Frank Discussion and Robert Murphy.
Compered by Andy ‘Mad Dog’ McFarlane.
Free gig. 10% of bar donated to the Pussy Riot Defence fund.
(Parlour Bar is a really nice pub with a good vibe.)
