The news anyone with half a brain has been dreading:
"On Friday evening, President Trump announced that he has ordered the US military to attack Syria's government. The attacks, which will be participated in by British and French forces, will focus on strikes against Syrian chemical capabilities... " (US, UK, France launch attacks on Syria, Jason Ditz, antiwar.com, 13/4/18)
I'm reminded of the combined British/French/Israeli aggression against Egypt in 1956, known as the Suez crisis. (For Israel today, merely substitute USrael.)
I'm reminded too of the following words by Britain's Minister of State at the Foreign Office at the time, Anthony Nutting, who resigned in protest at Britain's decision to join the prior Franco-Israeli conspiracy to attack Egypt:
"Rudyard Kipling's well-known lines on the Boer War - 'Let us admit it fairly as a business people should/ We have had no end of a lesson, it will do us no end of good' - apply equally appropriately to the Suez disaster of 1956. The Boer War, like the American War of Independence nearly 150 years before, showed that the Dutch colonies were not prepared to submit to British imperialism: the Suez War, 40 years later, showed that Britain could no longer dictate to Egypt.
"Within the span of that turbulent half-century the world was transformed and the conditions in which Britain had been able to play her former imperial role ceased to exist. British rule was withdrawn from vast areas of the world as the nineteenth-century concept of Empire was swept away in the scalding torrents of twentieth-century nationalism. Tel el-Kebir, Omdurman and the Khyber Pass now belong in the history books: the Wolseleys and the Kitcheners have ceased to be the arbiters of the fate of nations which, regardless of size and strength, now enjoy equality of status with the mightiest of powers in the United Nations.
"One of the more curious features of modern British history is that, while generally prepared to accept this transformation in respect of the Indian and Colonial Empires, successive British Governments were to show an extreme reluctance to abdicate control in the Middle East." (No End of a Lesson: The Story of Suez, 1967, pp 7-8)
Nutting published this insight into the colonial mindset of the British ruling class in the preface to his book on the Suez debacle 51 years ago. In attacking Syria yesterday, Britain and its Franco-USraeli accomplices have obviously learnt NOTHING in the 62-year period since they fucked up in Egypt in 1956.
Showing posts with label Egypt. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Egypt. Show all posts
Saturday, April 14, 2018
Sunday, April 8, 2018
The Middle East's First 'Shock & Awe' 2
"Alexandria was about to be turned into a testing ground for the latest advances in British military technology, including hydraulics, swiveling gun platforms, and compound armor. The standard British guns were superior to the Egyptian in every respect. They had a larger bore, faster muzzle velocity (the speed at which the shell leaves the barrel), and much more effective target penetration at a far greater range. The guns were mounted on rotating platforms on the Temeraire and within rotating turrets on the Inflexible, allowing both ships to fire in different directions without having to change position; they could also fire from a distance of up to five thousand yards, putting them well outside the range of the shore guns. The Inflexible was the first warship in the Royal Navy to be fitted with compound armor and underwater torpedo tubes. Each of its four 'monster guns,' as they were described in the London newspapers, now about to be fired for the first time in action, weighed eighty-one tons, had a barrel length of 26 feet, 9 inches, and could fire a 1,700-pound projectile (propelled by a charge of 370 pounds of powder and traveling a third of a mile a second) capable of penetrating twenty-two inches of iron plate at a thousand yards. Every shell fired from one of these guns cost the British taxpayer P25 10s. The destructive power of the Temeraire's four twenty-five-ton guns and four eighteen-ton guns was also very great. Against this massed naval might, the Egyptian shore guns were almost completely ineffective. Sir Beauchamp had no reason not to sleep well on the night of July 10.
"At 5:15 A.M. the Egyptian government sent a steamer to the Alexandra with a message accepting the British demands to stop work on the shore forts, only to receive a message from Sir Beauchamp that 'the time for negotiations was past.' The ships took up battle stations ranging from 1,000 to 3,700 yards offshore and opened up at 7:00 A.M., when the Alexandra fired the first shell at the Adda fort. The shelling continued until 5:00 P.M. 'All that matured science and modern skill could add to the inhuman science of death, mutilation and dire destruction was at work now,' one commentator wrote. Another thought the spectacle as exciting as watching a rugby match between Eton and Harrow. The effect on the Egyptian defenders as the coastal forts were pulverized by these giant shells was understandably demoralizing.
"Mansions on the shoreline were shattered. Even the royal palace at Ras al Tin was set on fire, starting in the harem and burning through the day. In the European quarter of the city, hotels, consulates, and shops were destroyed by the shelling or set on fire and pillaged as outraged Muslims struck back. As the bombardment continued, the French, Portuguese, and British consulates burnt to the ground. The Anglican church was damaged by a shell. The central market lay in ruins, the main square looked as if it had been swept by a hurricane, and some streets were so choked with debris that they could be traversed only in single file. The destruction was so great that a British correspondent who had lived in the city for seventeen years could no longer recognize the street the street where he lived even when he was standing in it. The European quarter was still burning days later. Perhaps two thousand Egyptian soldiers and an unknown number of civilians lay dead in the ruins of the forts or in the bombarded and burned center of the city. Admiral Seymour, the British government, and the London newspapers blamed bedouin, convicts, Egyptian soldiers, and incendiaries for the damage when most of the destruction had clearly been caused by the naval shelling. The British finally restored the order they had just destroyed by clearing the streets with Gatling guns, shooting arsonists, and hanging or flogging looters in what was left of the main square, but by this time most of Alexandria had been turned into 'rubble and ash.' In this welter of blood and destruction British military casualties amounted to five killed and twenty-seven wounded.
"After the event it was argued that 'the bombardment of this magnificent city, so long the emporium of Oriental commerce, produced dire consequences which had not been foreseen and to preclude which no measures had been taken.' European residents of the town were shocked that they had not been warned. 'Had Admiral Seymour given even forty-eight hours notice of his intentions to bombard, he and his government would have been spared the frightful responsibility which now weighs upon them of causing the horrible death of European men, women and children who perished miserably in the interior and the deaths of hundreds of Egyptian women and children who perished in the bombardment and in the panic flight from the hastily bombarded town.' In the wake of the shelling, reports started to come in from Zagazig, Tantah, Damanhour, Mahalla al Kabir, and other towns of the gruesome killings of Europeans (including an entire family dragged out of their train and laid across the line in front of the engine).
"Having established themselves in Alexandria, the British were now reinforced by a land army of more than forty thousand, many of them Indian Army veterans of the campaigns in Afghanistan. The pursuit of Urabi inland involved all the paraphernalia of a great imperial army on the move, from field hospitals, a postal department, and a wagon with a printing press (a wartime propaganda first) to pontoons, war balloons, heliographic equipment, and an armored siege train. A 'specialty ingenious arrangement' enabled a forty-pounder or a Gatling gun to be fired from the carriages without the train being damaged from the recoil.
"Urabi made his final stand at Tal al Kabir on September 12. The British force of thirteen thousand launched a night attack on a force at least twice the size and routed it. 'Enemy ran away in thousands, throwing away their arms when overtaken by our cavalry,' telegrammed the British commander, Sir Garnet Wolseley. 'Their loss is very great.' The bodies of thousands of slain Egyptians 'lay in heaps of thirty and fifty' across the battlefield. Many were headless, while others had been disemboweled or 'literally cut in two.' The British losses were almost trivial: nine officers and forty-eight NCOs and men killed, twenty-seven officers and 353 NCOs wounded, and twenty-two men missing. Urabi was captured and exiled to Ceylon for eighteen years after a sham trial. In the meantime, 'Mr Gladstone went out of his way to contend that the landing of British troops in Egypt was not an act of war.' Apparently the bombardment, invasion, and battlefield butchery were all acts of something else." (pp 36-41)
"At 5:15 A.M. the Egyptian government sent a steamer to the Alexandra with a message accepting the British demands to stop work on the shore forts, only to receive a message from Sir Beauchamp that 'the time for negotiations was past.' The ships took up battle stations ranging from 1,000 to 3,700 yards offshore and opened up at 7:00 A.M., when the Alexandra fired the first shell at the Adda fort. The shelling continued until 5:00 P.M. 'All that matured science and modern skill could add to the inhuman science of death, mutilation and dire destruction was at work now,' one commentator wrote. Another thought the spectacle as exciting as watching a rugby match between Eton and Harrow. The effect on the Egyptian defenders as the coastal forts were pulverized by these giant shells was understandably demoralizing.
"Mansions on the shoreline were shattered. Even the royal palace at Ras al Tin was set on fire, starting in the harem and burning through the day. In the European quarter of the city, hotels, consulates, and shops were destroyed by the shelling or set on fire and pillaged as outraged Muslims struck back. As the bombardment continued, the French, Portuguese, and British consulates burnt to the ground. The Anglican church was damaged by a shell. The central market lay in ruins, the main square looked as if it had been swept by a hurricane, and some streets were so choked with debris that they could be traversed only in single file. The destruction was so great that a British correspondent who had lived in the city for seventeen years could no longer recognize the street the street where he lived even when he was standing in it. The European quarter was still burning days later. Perhaps two thousand Egyptian soldiers and an unknown number of civilians lay dead in the ruins of the forts or in the bombarded and burned center of the city. Admiral Seymour, the British government, and the London newspapers blamed bedouin, convicts, Egyptian soldiers, and incendiaries for the damage when most of the destruction had clearly been caused by the naval shelling. The British finally restored the order they had just destroyed by clearing the streets with Gatling guns, shooting arsonists, and hanging or flogging looters in what was left of the main square, but by this time most of Alexandria had been turned into 'rubble and ash.' In this welter of blood and destruction British military casualties amounted to five killed and twenty-seven wounded.
"After the event it was argued that 'the bombardment of this magnificent city, so long the emporium of Oriental commerce, produced dire consequences which had not been foreseen and to preclude which no measures had been taken.' European residents of the town were shocked that they had not been warned. 'Had Admiral Seymour given even forty-eight hours notice of his intentions to bombard, he and his government would have been spared the frightful responsibility which now weighs upon them of causing the horrible death of European men, women and children who perished miserably in the interior and the deaths of hundreds of Egyptian women and children who perished in the bombardment and in the panic flight from the hastily bombarded town.' In the wake of the shelling, reports started to come in from Zagazig, Tantah, Damanhour, Mahalla al Kabir, and other towns of the gruesome killings of Europeans (including an entire family dragged out of their train and laid across the line in front of the engine).
"Having established themselves in Alexandria, the British were now reinforced by a land army of more than forty thousand, many of them Indian Army veterans of the campaigns in Afghanistan. The pursuit of Urabi inland involved all the paraphernalia of a great imperial army on the move, from field hospitals, a postal department, and a wagon with a printing press (a wartime propaganda first) to pontoons, war balloons, heliographic equipment, and an armored siege train. A 'specialty ingenious arrangement' enabled a forty-pounder or a Gatling gun to be fired from the carriages without the train being damaged from the recoil.
"Urabi made his final stand at Tal al Kabir on September 12. The British force of thirteen thousand launched a night attack on a force at least twice the size and routed it. 'Enemy ran away in thousands, throwing away their arms when overtaken by our cavalry,' telegrammed the British commander, Sir Garnet Wolseley. 'Their loss is very great.' The bodies of thousands of slain Egyptians 'lay in heaps of thirty and fifty' across the battlefield. Many were headless, while others had been disemboweled or 'literally cut in two.' The British losses were almost trivial: nine officers and forty-eight NCOs and men killed, twenty-seven officers and 353 NCOs wounded, and twenty-two men missing. Urabi was captured and exiled to Ceylon for eighteen years after a sham trial. In the meantime, 'Mr Gladstone went out of his way to contend that the landing of British troops in Egypt was not an act of war.' Apparently the bombardment, invasion, and battlefield butchery were all acts of something else." (pp 36-41)
The Middle East's First 'Shock & Awe' 1
"The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun." Ecclesiastes 1:9
Remember Bush's 'shock & awe', unleashed on Baghdad in March 2003? Wikipedia describes it as "a campaign tactic... based on the use of overwhelming power and spectacular displays of force designed to paralyze the enemy's perception of the battlefield and destroy its will to fight."
It's worth pointing out, however, that, as with all forms of imperial criminality in the Middle East, not to mention elsewhere, the British got there first with their bombardment of the Egyptian port city of Alexandria in July 1882.
Never heard of it? Neither had I. To fill you in on the gory details, and the British invasion of Egypt that followed, here's the first of 2 posts on the subject, taken from Jeremy Salt's invaluable history, The Unmaking of the Middle East: A History of Western Disorder in Arab Lands (2008):
"In Egypt the khedives [Ottoman viceroys] had slowly sunk into a morass of debt. Mehmet Ali [1769-1849], understanding full well where economic dependence leads, had refused to accept money from foreign lenders. His descendants had to learn the lesson the hard way. They borrowed heavily on European markets to finance various projects. Indebtedness had compelled the Khedive Ismail to sell Egypt's share of the Suez Canal company to Britain for the paltry sum of P4 million... The country's finances and public works were placed under the dual control of the British and the French, but by 1879 the situation was such a mess that the two powers had succeeded in securing the sultan's assent to Ismail's deposition in favour of his son Tawfiq.
"By this time the nationalists had adopted a slogan that was to be repeated until Egypt finally won independence through the revolution of 1952: 'Egypt for the Egyptians.' Their leader was Urabi Pasha (1841-1911), an army colonel. Patriotic and a man of the people, whereas the khedive was an alien in all ways, he had risen through the ranks, capturing the imagination of the people and compelling the khedive (whom he regarded as no more than an instrument of foreign domination) to bring him into the government. By late spring 1882 popular support for Urabi had forced the khedive to accept him as war minister. The establishment of a defiant patriotic government ended foreign supervision of Egypt's finances. The controllers left the country. Momentarily impotent, Britain and France demanded that the khedive dismiss the government and send Urabi and his troublemaking colleagues into the country. No sooner had he bowed to their demands than the Alexandria garrison mutinied, forcing Tawfiq to reappoint the ministry as quickly as he had brought about its downfall.
"A torrent of propaganda was now directed at Urabi from afar. Egypt had 'fallen into the hands of a clique of obscure officers, most of whose names had never been heard of in Egypt twelve months before.' [British PM] Gladstone, using language strikingly reminiscent of Sir Anthony Eden's attacks on President Gamal abd Al Nasser in 1956, called Urabi a 'usurper and dictator.' British and French warships were sent to Alexandria in the name of being on hand to protect the lives of Europeans should the 'rabble' turn on them. They took up their positions in the late spring and lay waiting, as motionless at anchor as crouched animals on a hot day. The British fleet consisted of nine warships (Alexandra - the flagship - Inflexible, Superb, Tremeraire, Sultan, Condor, Monarch, Invincible, and Penelope) and five gunboats (Bittern, Cygnet, Beacon, Helicon, and Decoy) fitted with 'torpedo apparatus' as well as the Gatling guns and Nordenfeld cannon with which the ironclads were also equipped. They were later joined by the warship Achilles. This display of naval power must have filled the inhabitants of the city with rising apprehension as the days went by without the warships moving.
"Alexandria's population of about 230,000 included 70,000 'Europeans,' a category that included Maltese, Armenians, Greeks, and Jews as well as the nationals of European states (including about 4,500 Britons). The provocative, ominous presence of the warships inevitably ended in disturbances. On June 11, a fight in the Rue des Soeurs between two donkey boys - one a Maltese Christian and the other a Muslim - triggered rioting in which about 300 people died. The estimated 150 European dead included the chief engineer of the Superb and two other Englishmen... who were 'literally done to death' in the street. Many of the victims were Maltese; others were Muslims cut down with rifles distributed beforehand to local Christians by the British consul... with the help and planning of the commander of the British fleet and the 'implicit backing' of the Foreign office and the Admiralty.
"News of the rioting caused panic in Cairo. Thousands of European and local Christians fled to Alexandria to book passages on ships out of the country. About fourteen thousand had left by June 17, and a further eight thousand were waiting to leave. The departure of so many trained personnel threatened to disrupt government services, including railways, posts, telegraphs, and the provision of water to Alexandria. The khedive was urged to move government offices to the port city, where the British fleet riding at anchor would be close at hand in case of further trouble.
"A conference that was convened in Constantinople to resolve the crisis ended without a solution being found. On July 3, the commander of the British flotilla (Sir Beauchamp Seymour) warned the Egyptian government to stop strengthening coastal fortifications at Alexandria or face the consequences, and on July 9 Gladstone gave his approval for an attack two days later. Having stationed their warships off the coast of another country and triggered serious disorders by their presence, the British now claimed the right to attack as 'a measure of self defence'."
Remember Bush's 'shock & awe', unleashed on Baghdad in March 2003? Wikipedia describes it as "a campaign tactic... based on the use of overwhelming power and spectacular displays of force designed to paralyze the enemy's perception of the battlefield and destroy its will to fight."
It's worth pointing out, however, that, as with all forms of imperial criminality in the Middle East, not to mention elsewhere, the British got there first with their bombardment of the Egyptian port city of Alexandria in July 1882.
Never heard of it? Neither had I. To fill you in on the gory details, and the British invasion of Egypt that followed, here's the first of 2 posts on the subject, taken from Jeremy Salt's invaluable history, The Unmaking of the Middle East: A History of Western Disorder in Arab Lands (2008):
"In Egypt the khedives [Ottoman viceroys] had slowly sunk into a morass of debt. Mehmet Ali [1769-1849], understanding full well where economic dependence leads, had refused to accept money from foreign lenders. His descendants had to learn the lesson the hard way. They borrowed heavily on European markets to finance various projects. Indebtedness had compelled the Khedive Ismail to sell Egypt's share of the Suez Canal company to Britain for the paltry sum of P4 million... The country's finances and public works were placed under the dual control of the British and the French, but by 1879 the situation was such a mess that the two powers had succeeded in securing the sultan's assent to Ismail's deposition in favour of his son Tawfiq.
"By this time the nationalists had adopted a slogan that was to be repeated until Egypt finally won independence through the revolution of 1952: 'Egypt for the Egyptians.' Their leader was Urabi Pasha (1841-1911), an army colonel. Patriotic and a man of the people, whereas the khedive was an alien in all ways, he had risen through the ranks, capturing the imagination of the people and compelling the khedive (whom he regarded as no more than an instrument of foreign domination) to bring him into the government. By late spring 1882 popular support for Urabi had forced the khedive to accept him as war minister. The establishment of a defiant patriotic government ended foreign supervision of Egypt's finances. The controllers left the country. Momentarily impotent, Britain and France demanded that the khedive dismiss the government and send Urabi and his troublemaking colleagues into the country. No sooner had he bowed to their demands than the Alexandria garrison mutinied, forcing Tawfiq to reappoint the ministry as quickly as he had brought about its downfall.
"A torrent of propaganda was now directed at Urabi from afar. Egypt had 'fallen into the hands of a clique of obscure officers, most of whose names had never been heard of in Egypt twelve months before.' [British PM] Gladstone, using language strikingly reminiscent of Sir Anthony Eden's attacks on President Gamal abd Al Nasser in 1956, called Urabi a 'usurper and dictator.' British and French warships were sent to Alexandria in the name of being on hand to protect the lives of Europeans should the 'rabble' turn on them. They took up their positions in the late spring and lay waiting, as motionless at anchor as crouched animals on a hot day. The British fleet consisted of nine warships (Alexandra - the flagship - Inflexible, Superb, Tremeraire, Sultan, Condor, Monarch, Invincible, and Penelope) and five gunboats (Bittern, Cygnet, Beacon, Helicon, and Decoy) fitted with 'torpedo apparatus' as well as the Gatling guns and Nordenfeld cannon with which the ironclads were also equipped. They were later joined by the warship Achilles. This display of naval power must have filled the inhabitants of the city with rising apprehension as the days went by without the warships moving.
"Alexandria's population of about 230,000 included 70,000 'Europeans,' a category that included Maltese, Armenians, Greeks, and Jews as well as the nationals of European states (including about 4,500 Britons). The provocative, ominous presence of the warships inevitably ended in disturbances. On June 11, a fight in the Rue des Soeurs between two donkey boys - one a Maltese Christian and the other a Muslim - triggered rioting in which about 300 people died. The estimated 150 European dead included the chief engineer of the Superb and two other Englishmen... who were 'literally done to death' in the street. Many of the victims were Maltese; others were Muslims cut down with rifles distributed beforehand to local Christians by the British consul... with the help and planning of the commander of the British fleet and the 'implicit backing' of the Foreign office and the Admiralty.
"News of the rioting caused panic in Cairo. Thousands of European and local Christians fled to Alexandria to book passages on ships out of the country. About fourteen thousand had left by June 17, and a further eight thousand were waiting to leave. The departure of so many trained personnel threatened to disrupt government services, including railways, posts, telegraphs, and the provision of water to Alexandria. The khedive was urged to move government offices to the port city, where the British fleet riding at anchor would be close at hand in case of further trouble.
"A conference that was convened in Constantinople to resolve the crisis ended without a solution being found. On July 3, the commander of the British flotilla (Sir Beauchamp Seymour) warned the Egyptian government to stop strengthening coastal fortifications at Alexandria or face the consequences, and on July 9 Gladstone gave his approval for an attack two days later. Having stationed their warships off the coast of another country and triggered serious disorders by their presence, the British now claimed the right to attack as 'a measure of self defence'."
Friday, September 29, 2017
Corbyn's Latest Foreign Policy Pronouncements
From Jeremy Corbyn's 2017 Labour conference speech in Brighton:
"[W]e also know that terrorism is thriving in a world our governments have helped to shape, with its failed states, military interventions and occupations where millions are forced to flee conflict or hunger. We have to do better and swap the knee-jerk response of another bombing campaign for long-term help to solve conflicts rather than fuel them. And we must put our values at the heart of our foreign policy. Democracy and human rights are not an optional extra to be deployed selectively.
"So we cannot be silent at the cruel Saudi war in Yemen, while continuing to supply arms to Saudi Arabia, or the crushing of democracy in Egypt or Bahrain, or the tragic loss of life in Congo. And I say to Aung San Suu Kyi - a champion of democracy and human rights - : end the violence now against the Rohingya in Myanmar and allow the UN and international aid agencies in to Rakhine state. The Rohingya have suffered for too long!
"We should stand firm for peaceful solutions to international crises. Let's tone down the rhetoric, and back dialogue and negotiations to wind down the deeply dangerous confrontation over the Korean Peninsula. And I appeal to the UN secretary general, Antonio Guterres to use the authority of his office and go to Washington and Pyongyang to kick start that essential process of dialogue.
"And let's give real support to end the oppression of the Palestinian people, the 50-year occupation and illegal settlement expansion and move to a genuine two-state solution of the Israel-Palestine conflict.
"Britain's voice needs to be heard independently in the world. We must be a candid friend to the United States, now more than ever. The values we share are not served by building walls, banning immigrants on the basis of religion, polluting the planet, or pandering to racism."
A genuine two-state solution of the Israel-Palestine conflict???
Meanwhile, back in occupied Palestine, in the illegal Gush Etzion settlement bloc, to be precise, Netanyahu and 5,000 guests have just celebrated 50 years of Israeli occupation... 'There will be no more uprooting of settlements in the land of Israel,' [Netanyahu] said to applause." (Israel holds controversial ceremony marking 50 years of settlement, Michael Blum, yahoo.com/news, 28/9/17)
"[W]e also know that terrorism is thriving in a world our governments have helped to shape, with its failed states, military interventions and occupations where millions are forced to flee conflict or hunger. We have to do better and swap the knee-jerk response of another bombing campaign for long-term help to solve conflicts rather than fuel them. And we must put our values at the heart of our foreign policy. Democracy and human rights are not an optional extra to be deployed selectively.
"So we cannot be silent at the cruel Saudi war in Yemen, while continuing to supply arms to Saudi Arabia, or the crushing of democracy in Egypt or Bahrain, or the tragic loss of life in Congo. And I say to Aung San Suu Kyi - a champion of democracy and human rights - : end the violence now against the Rohingya in Myanmar and allow the UN and international aid agencies in to Rakhine state. The Rohingya have suffered for too long!
"We should stand firm for peaceful solutions to international crises. Let's tone down the rhetoric, and back dialogue and negotiations to wind down the deeply dangerous confrontation over the Korean Peninsula. And I appeal to the UN secretary general, Antonio Guterres to use the authority of his office and go to Washington and Pyongyang to kick start that essential process of dialogue.
"And let's give real support to end the oppression of the Palestinian people, the 50-year occupation and illegal settlement expansion and move to a genuine two-state solution of the Israel-Palestine conflict.
"Britain's voice needs to be heard independently in the world. We must be a candid friend to the United States, now more than ever. The values we share are not served by building walls, banning immigrants on the basis of religion, polluting the planet, or pandering to racism."
A genuine two-state solution of the Israel-Palestine conflict???
Meanwhile, back in occupied Palestine, in the illegal Gush Etzion settlement bloc, to be precise, Netanyahu and 5,000 guests have just celebrated 50 years of Israeli occupation... 'There will be no more uprooting of settlements in the land of Israel,' [Netanyahu] said to applause." (Israel holds controversial ceremony marking 50 years of settlement, Michael Blum, yahoo.com/news, 28/9/17)
Friday, September 15, 2017
Kissing Cousins
Australia's first female Muslim MP, Labor's Anne Aly (Cowan, WA), went on a study tour of Israel in March this year. Apparently, so overwhelmed was she that she's only just now gotten around to unburdening herself on the subject at an Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) debriefing in Perth:
"When the opportunity came to visit Israel, I was grateful because I needed to have the experience. I needed to go and see for myself... to actually experience what it was like in Israel rather than fit into some kind of position I should take on any of the issues... I really wanted to formulate my own opinion through my own experience, because nothing replaces the experience of actually being somewhere and having that experience of being there." (WA MP talks of her visit to Israel, jwire.com, 14/9/17)
Ah, the politician's lot. That email/phone call. That knock on the door. What could it portend? Well, blow me down if it isn't an opportunity to visit Israel.
And what a wonderful opportunity that is! Just imagine, you not only get to formulate your own opinion of the Palestine/Israel shindig through your own experience, but have attentive Israel lobbyists on hand to decide where you go and who you speak to, and afterwards whisk you off to all the best eateries in the land. You'd be silly to pass it up, eh?
As it happens, Aly, who had arrived in Australia at the tender age of two, recalled the words of her mother:
"Growing up... my mother always called Jewish people our cousins. Always called Israelis our cousins."
Cousins, eh? Not so much a rambamming as a family visit! (After all, isn't MUM the word?) And, hey, doesn't Mrs Aly's homely maternal wisdom put the wars of 1948, 1956, 1967 and 1973 in a whole new light? Mere family tiffs! And all praise to cuz Anwar for kissing and making up with cuz Menachem at the White House in 1979, cuz since then it's been kissing cousins all the way.
The despair over the Palestine/Israel contretemps that had apparently dogged Ms Aly for all of her 49 years disappeared, I'm pleased to hear, in an instant:
"It's really easy to get caught up in the kind of despair of you know 40 or 50 years of no resolution, but what I saw, what I saw was inspiration. What I saw was people who want to live in peace... "
No, nothing even vaguely resembling a brutal OCCUPATION - just smiling, welcoming Israeli cousins, all apparently cooing 'Shalom ilaykum, cuz' at Ms Aly.
Of course, once blinded by anti-Israel propaganda, she could now see that Mum was right all along:
"The only exposure that I really ever had to the whole Palestine-Israel question was with propaganda. We really need to be vigilant against that, and particularly we need to be vigilant against propagandising the situation to be about Muslim versus Jew. It's not about Muslims versus Jews. Muslims and Jews are cousins."
And the proof in the pudding? Her Israeli cousins tenderly ministering to their fallen-on-hard-times Syrian cousins:
"Dr Aly recalled an emotional encounter at the Ziv hospital in Safed, where Israeli doctors treat victims of the Syrian Civil War. Dr Aly talked about how she became a translator for her fellow MPs [Senator Alex Gallacher, Julian Hill, Steve Georganas, Meryl Swanson and Milton Dick*]. She also reflected on her admiration for the doctors and staff who are treating the injured Syrians."
Now that must've been one, like, almighty emotional encounter for the normally phlegmatic Aly, cuz: "When I was going to the White House people were like, 'Wow you must be so excited to meet Obama' and I was like 'meh'." (Why teenage extremism is personal for Anne Aly, Rachel Olding, Sydney Morning Herald, 12/2/16)
[*I'll deal with these rambammed non-relatives in my next post.]
"When the opportunity came to visit Israel, I was grateful because I needed to have the experience. I needed to go and see for myself... to actually experience what it was like in Israel rather than fit into some kind of position I should take on any of the issues... I really wanted to formulate my own opinion through my own experience, because nothing replaces the experience of actually being somewhere and having that experience of being there." (WA MP talks of her visit to Israel, jwire.com, 14/9/17)
Ah, the politician's lot. That email/phone call. That knock on the door. What could it portend? Well, blow me down if it isn't an opportunity to visit Israel.
And what a wonderful opportunity that is! Just imagine, you not only get to formulate your own opinion of the Palestine/Israel shindig through your own experience, but have attentive Israel lobbyists on hand to decide where you go and who you speak to, and afterwards whisk you off to all the best eateries in the land. You'd be silly to pass it up, eh?
As it happens, Aly, who had arrived in Australia at the tender age of two, recalled the words of her mother:
"Growing up... my mother always called Jewish people our cousins. Always called Israelis our cousins."
Cousins, eh? Not so much a rambamming as a family visit! (After all, isn't MUM the word?) And, hey, doesn't Mrs Aly's homely maternal wisdom put the wars of 1948, 1956, 1967 and 1973 in a whole new light? Mere family tiffs! And all praise to cuz Anwar for kissing and making up with cuz Menachem at the White House in 1979, cuz since then it's been kissing cousins all the way.
The despair over the Palestine/Israel contretemps that had apparently dogged Ms Aly for all of her 49 years disappeared, I'm pleased to hear, in an instant:
"It's really easy to get caught up in the kind of despair of you know 40 or 50 years of no resolution, but what I saw, what I saw was inspiration. What I saw was people who want to live in peace... "
No, nothing even vaguely resembling a brutal OCCUPATION - just smiling, welcoming Israeli cousins, all apparently cooing 'Shalom ilaykum, cuz' at Ms Aly.
Of course, once blinded by anti-Israel propaganda, she could now see that Mum was right all along:
"The only exposure that I really ever had to the whole Palestine-Israel question was with propaganda. We really need to be vigilant against that, and particularly we need to be vigilant against propagandising the situation to be about Muslim versus Jew. It's not about Muslims versus Jews. Muslims and Jews are cousins."
And the proof in the pudding? Her Israeli cousins tenderly ministering to their fallen-on-hard-times Syrian cousins:
"Dr Aly recalled an emotional encounter at the Ziv hospital in Safed, where Israeli doctors treat victims of the Syrian Civil War. Dr Aly talked about how she became a translator for her fellow MPs [Senator Alex Gallacher, Julian Hill, Steve Georganas, Meryl Swanson and Milton Dick*]. She also reflected on her admiration for the doctors and staff who are treating the injured Syrians."
Now that must've been one, like, almighty emotional encounter for the normally phlegmatic Aly, cuz: "When I was going to the White House people were like, 'Wow you must be so excited to meet Obama' and I was like 'meh'." (Why teenage extremism is personal for Anne Aly, Rachel Olding, Sydney Morning Herald, 12/2/16)
[*I'll deal with these rambammed non-relatives in my next post.]
Sunday, May 28, 2017
The Scourge of Saudi-Wahhabism
Secular Syrian, Bassem@BBassem, tweets (28/5) on the sectarian terrorist attack against Egyptian Copts in Minya:
*Yesterday, [the] Egyptian president blamed [the] attack on the militants that left Aleppo 5 months ago. Keep our terrorists out of this, u have ur own.
*Saudi-Wahhabism has graduated monsters that can spray children with bullets and not even think twice about it.
*ISIS claimed credit for this attack but it carries the Muslim Brotherhood signature. Muslim Brotherhood smarter than claiming credit for this.
*Yesterday, [the] Egyptian president blamed [the] attack on the militants that left Aleppo 5 months ago. Keep our terrorists out of this, u have ur own.
*Saudi-Wahhabism has graduated monsters that can spray children with bullets and not even think twice about it.
*ISIS claimed credit for this attack but it carries the Muslim Brotherhood signature. Muslim Brotherhood smarter than claiming credit for this.
Sunday, March 5, 2017
The Agony of Egypt
Here's yet another case of the Devil looking after his own:
"Egypt's top appeals court has found Hosni Mubarak innocent of involvement in the killing of protesters during the 2011 uprisings that ended his 30-year rule..." (Appeals court clears Mubarak, Lin Noueihed, Sydney Morning Herald/ New York Times, 4/3/17).
Mubarak was succeeded as president, you'll remember, by Mohammed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood. His short-lived, democratically-elected government was toppled in a 2013 coup by the current Egyptian president, General Sisi, who could well be considered the new Mubarak. (Morsi, needless to say, rots in prison.)
Since US President Trump is planning to meet with his client, General Sisi, some time this month, the indefatigable ladies of Codepink are petitioning Trump to cancel the meeting.
And here's why:
"According to Human Rights Watch, at least 34,000 people have been arrested and detained since General Sisi came to power in Egypt in 2013. The Egyptian Commission for Rights & Freedoms additionally reported that 912 people were victims of politically motivated forced disappearances from August 1915 - August 2016. And throughout 2016, 433 detainees - including 8 children - reported torture and mistreatment while in custody."
Codepink go on to point out that:
"Apparently, these human rights abuses do not dishearten the new US president, as Trump has previously complimented the Egyptian dictator by stating that he has 'done a very good job' and that 'he's a fantastic guy, he took control of Egypt'. Trump is either missing the irony that Sisi literally took control of Egypt via military coup - or simply finds this action praiseworthy."
And they also remind us that Obama gave $1.3 billion a year to Sisi. They could have added that this gift-that-keeps-on-giving is Egypt's annual reward for sticking with its 1979 peace treaty with Israel, something Mubarak regarded as "untouchable compensation."* (That sum, BTW, should always be added to the already $3 billion plus that the US gifts Israel annually so that the true cost of Israel to the US taxpayer, per year, is borne in mind, namely $4-5 billion.)
[*See my 9/2/11 post That Peace Treaty...]
"Egypt's top appeals court has found Hosni Mubarak innocent of involvement in the killing of protesters during the 2011 uprisings that ended his 30-year rule..." (Appeals court clears Mubarak, Lin Noueihed, Sydney Morning Herald/ New York Times, 4/3/17).
Mubarak was succeeded as president, you'll remember, by Mohammed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood. His short-lived, democratically-elected government was toppled in a 2013 coup by the current Egyptian president, General Sisi, who could well be considered the new Mubarak. (Morsi, needless to say, rots in prison.)
Since US President Trump is planning to meet with his client, General Sisi, some time this month, the indefatigable ladies of Codepink are petitioning Trump to cancel the meeting.
And here's why:
"According to Human Rights Watch, at least 34,000 people have been arrested and detained since General Sisi came to power in Egypt in 2013. The Egyptian Commission for Rights & Freedoms additionally reported that 912 people were victims of politically motivated forced disappearances from August 1915 - August 2016. And throughout 2016, 433 detainees - including 8 children - reported torture and mistreatment while in custody."
Codepink go on to point out that:
"Apparently, these human rights abuses do not dishearten the new US president, as Trump has previously complimented the Egyptian dictator by stating that he has 'done a very good job' and that 'he's a fantastic guy, he took control of Egypt'. Trump is either missing the irony that Sisi literally took control of Egypt via military coup - or simply finds this action praiseworthy."
And they also remind us that Obama gave $1.3 billion a year to Sisi. They could have added that this gift-that-keeps-on-giving is Egypt's annual reward for sticking with its 1979 peace treaty with Israel, something Mubarak regarded as "untouchable compensation."* (That sum, BTW, should always be added to the already $3 billion plus that the US gifts Israel annually so that the true cost of Israel to the US taxpayer, per year, is borne in mind, namely $4-5 billion.)
[*See my 9/2/11 post That Peace Treaty...]
Sunday, October 23, 2016
Back to the Cold War
It's back to the 50s, with The Weekend Australian devoting half a page to the Hungarian uprising of 23 October, 1956. To the right - a heading, "Freedom First: Hungary 1956, a Hungarian flag, and the caption: "On the 60th anniversary of the 1956 revolution in Hungary we express our gratitude to our heroes and to those who sheltered and helped them." To the left - a black-and-white period photograph of civilians marching along a (Budapest?) street, preceded by a man carrying a coloured Hungarian flag, and the caption: "New heroes are born where they are not forgotten." No sponsorship notice appears at the foot of the page.
I've never before seen anything like it in The Australian. It will be interesting to see what other Soviet crimes are similarly commemorated from hereon in. Of course, don't expect to see anything similar when it comes to US, British, French or Israeli crimes.
The Hungarian uprising lasted until November 10, crushed by Soviet troops, following their invasion on November 4. Thousands of Hungarians died in its wake.
Around the same time, from 29 October to 7 November, 1956, a tripartite Anglo-French-Israeli aggression was launched against Egypt with the aim of taking control of the Suez Canal. Thousands of Egyptians, military and civilian, died resisting the invaders. But don't expect those heroes to be commemorated in Murdoch's Australian on the 60th anniversary of their resistance to Anglo-French-Israeli aggression.
I've never before seen anything like it in The Australian. It will be interesting to see what other Soviet crimes are similarly commemorated from hereon in. Of course, don't expect to see anything similar when it comes to US, British, French or Israeli crimes.
The Hungarian uprising lasted until November 10, crushed by Soviet troops, following their invasion on November 4. Thousands of Hungarians died in its wake.
Around the same time, from 29 October to 7 November, 1956, a tripartite Anglo-French-Israeli aggression was launched against Egypt with the aim of taking control of the Suez Canal. Thousands of Egyptians, military and civilian, died resisting the invaders. But don't expect those heroes to be commemorated in Murdoch's Australian on the 60th anniversary of their resistance to Anglo-French-Israeli aggression.
Thursday, October 6, 2016
43rd Anniversary of the October War
On October 6, 1973, Egypt and Syria, launched the October War (6-26 October) against Israel over its continued refusal to end the occupation of Egyptian (Sinai) and Syrian territory (Golan Heights), seized in 1967. Although the attack took Israel completely by surprise, and trashed its carefully constructed myth of military invincibility, it was ultimately unsuccessful in reclaiming these territories at the time. (The Sinai was later returned to Egypt, but only in stages (1974-1982), with restrictions, and, in full, only after the conclusion of a US-engineered peace treaty (1979) which gave Israel a free hand to invade and occupy Lebanon in 1982. (See my 15/2/09 post A Likud Peace.) The Golan Heights, annexed by Israel in 1981, remain under Israeli occupation.)
So what was it in particular that goaded the Egyptian president, Anwar Sadat (1918-1981), to chance all on a war with Israel?
The influential editor of the Egyptian daily, Al Ahram, Mohamed Heikal, records a confidential conversation he had with the president on September 10, 1973. Here's the key extract:
"We turned to the likely Israeli response, and the President stressed his anger at what he called Israel's 'intolerable arrogance.' He picked up the second black file. 'This.' he said, 'is a dossier on Israeli intentions.' He pulled from it a report of a television interview given a month or so earlier by [Israeli] General Dayan, in which Dayan had made it quite clear that Israel was determined to build a new port and town at Yamit, on Egyptian territory bordering the Gaza Strip. Dayan had talked of this as a 'primary military defence line'. Egypt, his remarks showed beyond doubt, was to be presented with a fait accompli. 'Look at that,' said the President. 'If it was only for that one statement of Dayan's I think we should go to war'." (The Road to Ramadan: The Inside Story of How the Arabs Prepared for and Almost Won the October War of 1973, 1975, pp 21-22)
In a word, Sadat had little choice. The sober truth is that but for his decision to go to war, and the diplomatic moves which it set in train, the Egyptian Sinai would be as riddled with Israeli settlements as the occupied Palestinian West Bank is today.
So what was it in particular that goaded the Egyptian president, Anwar Sadat (1918-1981), to chance all on a war with Israel?
The influential editor of the Egyptian daily, Al Ahram, Mohamed Heikal, records a confidential conversation he had with the president on September 10, 1973. Here's the key extract:
"We turned to the likely Israeli response, and the President stressed his anger at what he called Israel's 'intolerable arrogance.' He picked up the second black file. 'This.' he said, 'is a dossier on Israeli intentions.' He pulled from it a report of a television interview given a month or so earlier by [Israeli] General Dayan, in which Dayan had made it quite clear that Israel was determined to build a new port and town at Yamit, on Egyptian territory bordering the Gaza Strip. Dayan had talked of this as a 'primary military defence line'. Egypt, his remarks showed beyond doubt, was to be presented with a fait accompli. 'Look at that,' said the President. 'If it was only for that one statement of Dayan's I think we should go to war'." (The Road to Ramadan: The Inside Story of How the Arabs Prepared for and Almost Won the October War of 1973, 1975, pp 21-22)
In a word, Sadat had little choice. The sober truth is that but for his decision to go to war, and the diplomatic moves which it set in train, the Egyptian Sinai would be as riddled with Israeli settlements as the occupied Palestinian West Bank is today.
Monday, July 18, 2016
Thereby Hangs a Tale...
Guardian Australia is featuring a "video explainer" called Why is France targeted so often by terrorists (16/7). Its only reference to that nation's bloody colonial history is as follows:
"France has intervened militarily and economically to defend its interests in Africa and the Middle East."
To expand the old Shakespearean line: thereby hangs a largely overlooked, not to say forgotten, tale - at least by the mainstream media.
Although the warp and woof of this tale has many a tangled strand, I present here just one, involving the intersection between France's (along with Britain's and Israel's) failed stab at regime change in 1956 Egypt and its arrogant refusal to read the writing on the wall in 1960s French occupied/settled Algeria:
"When [British PM Anthony] Eden and [Foreign Secretary Selwyn] Lloyd left Paris [French PM Guy] Mollet was able to reassure his Israeli partner, David Ben-Gurion, that he could depend absolutely on British co-operation in the plan for invading [Egypt's] Sinai and capturing the [Suez] Canal. So confident, in fact, was the mood in Paris after the meeting of October 16 [1956] that Mollet and his Ministers now decided to toughen their Algerian policy. Until this moment they had not been certain enough of ultimate victory over the [Algerian] nationalists to go all out in their efforts to crush the rebellion. But now that [the Egyptian president] Nasser was to be destroyed, the order was given to pull no punches and a plan was promptly hatched to capture the leader of the Algerian rebels, Ahmed Ben Bella, by a singular act of treachery.
"Ben Bella was currently visiting Rabat at the invitation of the Sultan of Morocco, who, with Premier Bourguiba of Tunisia, was seeking to persuade the National Liberation Front of Algeria to agree to peace talks with the French. These efforts at mediation had earlier received active encouragement from Mollet himself, in token of which the French authorities had earlier given a safe-conduct across Algeria for the aeroplane which was to transport Ben Bella from Rabat to Tunis for the talks with Bourguiba. But Mollet was now no longer interested in discussing peace in Algeria. And when the aeroplane reached Algerian air space it was immediately intercepted by French fighters and forced to land at Algiers Airport. Ben Bella and four of his nationalist associates were then arrested and taken off to prison in France, where they were to remain until Algeria finally won her independence six years later.
"By this act of treacherous folly, France not only forfeited the last vestiges of Arab respect in North Africa, but, when her Suez plan failed to destroy Nasser, she served to prolong her own agony in Algeria by isolating the principal spokesman of the nationalists in a Paris prison and thereby denying to the only interlocutor valable the opportunity to negotiate a settlement. From then on it was war to the death in Algeria - and many Frenchmen as well as Algerians were to die in the six bloody years that followed. Egypt increased her assistance to the rebels, and the Moroccans and Tunisians, rebuffed in their efforts to bring about a truce, joined in giving the National Liberation Front all possible aid and protection." (No End of a Lesson: The Story of Suez, Anthony Nutting, 1967, pp 100-01)
"France has intervened militarily and economically to defend its interests in Africa and the Middle East."
To expand the old Shakespearean line: thereby hangs a largely overlooked, not to say forgotten, tale - at least by the mainstream media.
Although the warp and woof of this tale has many a tangled strand, I present here just one, involving the intersection between France's (along with Britain's and Israel's) failed stab at regime change in 1956 Egypt and its arrogant refusal to read the writing on the wall in 1960s French occupied/settled Algeria:
"When [British PM Anthony] Eden and [Foreign Secretary Selwyn] Lloyd left Paris [French PM Guy] Mollet was able to reassure his Israeli partner, David Ben-Gurion, that he could depend absolutely on British co-operation in the plan for invading [Egypt's] Sinai and capturing the [Suez] Canal. So confident, in fact, was the mood in Paris after the meeting of October 16 [1956] that Mollet and his Ministers now decided to toughen their Algerian policy. Until this moment they had not been certain enough of ultimate victory over the [Algerian] nationalists to go all out in their efforts to crush the rebellion. But now that [the Egyptian president] Nasser was to be destroyed, the order was given to pull no punches and a plan was promptly hatched to capture the leader of the Algerian rebels, Ahmed Ben Bella, by a singular act of treachery.
"Ben Bella was currently visiting Rabat at the invitation of the Sultan of Morocco, who, with Premier Bourguiba of Tunisia, was seeking to persuade the National Liberation Front of Algeria to agree to peace talks with the French. These efforts at mediation had earlier received active encouragement from Mollet himself, in token of which the French authorities had earlier given a safe-conduct across Algeria for the aeroplane which was to transport Ben Bella from Rabat to Tunis for the talks with Bourguiba. But Mollet was now no longer interested in discussing peace in Algeria. And when the aeroplane reached Algerian air space it was immediately intercepted by French fighters and forced to land at Algiers Airport. Ben Bella and four of his nationalist associates were then arrested and taken off to prison in France, where they were to remain until Algeria finally won her independence six years later.
"By this act of treacherous folly, France not only forfeited the last vestiges of Arab respect in North Africa, but, when her Suez plan failed to destroy Nasser, she served to prolong her own agony in Algeria by isolating the principal spokesman of the nationalists in a Paris prison and thereby denying to the only interlocutor valable the opportunity to negotiate a settlement. From then on it was war to the death in Algeria - and many Frenchmen as well as Algerians were to die in the six bloody years that followed. Egypt increased her assistance to the rebels, and the Moroccans and Tunisians, rebuffed in their efforts to bring about a truce, joined in giving the National Liberation Front all possible aid and protection." (No End of a Lesson: The Story of Suez, Anthony Nutting, 1967, pp 100-01)
Saturday, April 23, 2016
The Israeli-Saudi-Egyptian Axis
Birds of a feather:
"Mohamad bin Abdallah Zahrani, Mohamad bin Abdullah Rabia and Walid bin Abdel Rahman al-Obaidi top a list that includes the names of senior officers in Saudi Arabia. The list was part of classified documents that were leaked to make the story public: Saudi Arabia has been cooperating with the Israeli government over military training courses, joint military cooperation and management of sensitive areas in the Middle East. The 2014 memorandum of understanding was concluded on joint military cooperation between Israel and Saudi Arabia in the Red Sea, and was exposed recently as the secret documents were leaked by a senior military official linked to left-wing liberal [Israeli] party 'Meretz'. One of the most stunning details of the leaks is that the agreement was concluded to [facilitate?] Saudi Arabia and Israel['s] management of sensitive passageways such as the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, the Gulf of Aden and the Suez Canal, and the Red Sea littoral countries as well. Playing a game of mutual interest, the oil-rich country and Israel held a joint operation staff [meeting] on Tiran Island. The island will be used as the headquarters of a joint operation between Tel Aviv and Riyadh in the Red Sea..." (Saudi Arabia & Israel in joint training, mutual interests in Red Sea, ahtribune.com, 15/4/16)
[*Tiran and Sanafir are two small, uninhabited islands in the Red Sea, recently transferred by Egypt to Saudi Arabia.]
"Mohamad bin Abdallah Zahrani, Mohamad bin Abdullah Rabia and Walid bin Abdel Rahman al-Obaidi top a list that includes the names of senior officers in Saudi Arabia. The list was part of classified documents that were leaked to make the story public: Saudi Arabia has been cooperating with the Israeli government over military training courses, joint military cooperation and management of sensitive areas in the Middle East. The 2014 memorandum of understanding was concluded on joint military cooperation between Israel and Saudi Arabia in the Red Sea, and was exposed recently as the secret documents were leaked by a senior military official linked to left-wing liberal [Israeli] party 'Meretz'. One of the most stunning details of the leaks is that the agreement was concluded to [facilitate?] Saudi Arabia and Israel['s] management of sensitive passageways such as the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, the Gulf of Aden and the Suez Canal, and the Red Sea littoral countries as well. Playing a game of mutual interest, the oil-rich country and Israel held a joint operation staff [meeting] on Tiran Island. The island will be used as the headquarters of a joint operation between Tel Aviv and Riyadh in the Red Sea..." (Saudi Arabia & Israel in joint training, mutual interests in Red Sea, ahtribune.com, 15/4/16)
[*Tiran and Sanafir are two small, uninhabited islands in the Red Sea, recently transferred by Egypt to Saudi Arabia.]
Saturday, June 27, 2015
The Saudi-Israeli Alliance
We live in strange times:
1)
"There are many hands behind the Israeli army's onslaught on Gaza. America is not unhappy that Hamas is getting such a beating... Nor is Egypt overcome with grief...
"Neither matter to Netanyahu as much as the third undeclared partner in this unholy alliance, for neither on their own could give him the cover he needs for a military operation of this ferocity... Such permission can only come from a brother Arab.
"The attack on Gaza comes by Saudi Royal Appointment. This royal warrant is nothing less than an open secret in Israel, and both former and serving defense officials are relaxed when they talk about it. Former Israeli defence minister Shaul Mofaz surprised the presenter on Channel 10 by saying Israel had to specify a role for Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in the demilitarisation of Hamas. Asked what he meant by that, he added that Saudi and Emirati funds should be used to rebuild Gaza after Hamas had been defanged.
"Amos Gilad, the Israeli defence establishment's point man with Mubarak's Egypt and now director of the Israeli defence ministry's policy and political-military relations department told the academic James Dorsey recently: 'Everything is underground, nothing is public. But our security cooperation with Egypt and the Gulf states is unique. This is the best period of security and diplomatic relations with the Arabs.' The celebration is mutual. King Abdullah let it be known that he had phoned President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi to approve of an Egyptian ceasefire initiative which had not been put to Hamas, and had the Jerusalem Post quoting analysts about whether a ceasefire was ever seriously intended.
"Mossad and Saudi intelligence officials meet regularly: The two sides conferred when the former Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi was about to be deposed... and they are hand in glove on Iran, both in preparing for an Israeli strike over Saudi airspace and in sabotaging the existing nuclear programme. There has even been a well sourced claim that the Saudis are financing most of Israel's very expensive campaign against Iran..." (From Saudi Israeli alliance forged in blood, David Hearst, middleeasteye.net, 20/7/14)
2)
"For more than half a century, Saudi Arabia has tried to use its vast oil wealth to build a lobby in the United States that could rival the imposing Israel lobby... but [they] could never build the kind of grassroots political organization that has given Israel... such extraordinary clout... But Saudi Arabia may have found another way to buy influence inside the United States - by giving money to Israel and currying favor with Israeli Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Over the past several years, as both Saudi Arabia and Israel have identified Iran and the so-called 'Shiite crescent' as their principal enemies, this once-unthinkable alliance has become possible - and the Saudis, as they are wont to do, have thrown lots of money into the deal.
"According to a source briefed by US intelligence analysts, the Saudis have given Israel at least $16 billion over the past two and a half years, funneling the money through a third-country Arab state and into an Israeli 'development' account in Europe to help finance infrastructure inside Israel. The source first called the account 'a Netanyahu slush fund,' but later refined that characterization, saying the money was used for public projects such as building settlements in the West Bank..." (From Did money seal Israeli-Saudi alliance? Robert Parry, consortiumnews.com, 15/4/15)
1)
"There are many hands behind the Israeli army's onslaught on Gaza. America is not unhappy that Hamas is getting such a beating... Nor is Egypt overcome with grief...
"Neither matter to Netanyahu as much as the third undeclared partner in this unholy alliance, for neither on their own could give him the cover he needs for a military operation of this ferocity... Such permission can only come from a brother Arab.
"The attack on Gaza comes by Saudi Royal Appointment. This royal warrant is nothing less than an open secret in Israel, and both former and serving defense officials are relaxed when they talk about it. Former Israeli defence minister Shaul Mofaz surprised the presenter on Channel 10 by saying Israel had to specify a role for Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in the demilitarisation of Hamas. Asked what he meant by that, he added that Saudi and Emirati funds should be used to rebuild Gaza after Hamas had been defanged.
"Amos Gilad, the Israeli defence establishment's point man with Mubarak's Egypt and now director of the Israeli defence ministry's policy and political-military relations department told the academic James Dorsey recently: 'Everything is underground, nothing is public. But our security cooperation with Egypt and the Gulf states is unique. This is the best period of security and diplomatic relations with the Arabs.' The celebration is mutual. King Abdullah let it be known that he had phoned President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi to approve of an Egyptian ceasefire initiative which had not been put to Hamas, and had the Jerusalem Post quoting analysts about whether a ceasefire was ever seriously intended.
"Mossad and Saudi intelligence officials meet regularly: The two sides conferred when the former Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi was about to be deposed... and they are hand in glove on Iran, both in preparing for an Israeli strike over Saudi airspace and in sabotaging the existing nuclear programme. There has even been a well sourced claim that the Saudis are financing most of Israel's very expensive campaign against Iran..." (From Saudi Israeli alliance forged in blood, David Hearst, middleeasteye.net, 20/7/14)
2)
"For more than half a century, Saudi Arabia has tried to use its vast oil wealth to build a lobby in the United States that could rival the imposing Israel lobby... but [they] could never build the kind of grassroots political organization that has given Israel... such extraordinary clout... But Saudi Arabia may have found another way to buy influence inside the United States - by giving money to Israel and currying favor with Israeli Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Over the past several years, as both Saudi Arabia and Israel have identified Iran and the so-called 'Shiite crescent' as their principal enemies, this once-unthinkable alliance has become possible - and the Saudis, as they are wont to do, have thrown lots of money into the deal.
"According to a source briefed by US intelligence analysts, the Saudis have given Israel at least $16 billion over the past two and a half years, funneling the money through a third-country Arab state and into an Israeli 'development' account in Europe to help finance infrastructure inside Israel. The source first called the account 'a Netanyahu slush fund,' but later refined that characterization, saying the money was used for public projects such as building settlements in the West Bank..." (From Did money seal Israeli-Saudi alliance? Robert Parry, consortiumnews.com, 15/4/15)
Friday, July 18, 2014
About That 'Ceasefire'
The expected Israeli ground invasion of the Gaza Strip has just begun... based, it seems, on a lie:
"Look, the story goes something like this. It is quite fishy:
"Netanyahu calls Sisi. After the call, Egypt issues an initiative of sorts without consulting Hamas.
"Suddenly, the Israeli government, that would never normally make a decision so fast to approve a ceasefire by another country, even if it were the US, immediately approves, in no time, the Egyptian initiative, knowing that Hamas would say no because it was never consulted.
"Soon after, Netanyahu goes to the press and says: 'Now that Hamas has not accept the ceasefire, we have the right, the international legitimacy, to continue our campaign against Gaza, and even expand it.
"Right after that, Kerry says: 'This is a despicable silence on the part of Hamas, and Israel has a right to defend itself.
"All in all, this begs a lot of questions. There seems here to have been an effort to undercut, to undermine, an Arab/American initiative to bring something forward that takes into consideration both Hamas' demands and Israel's. I am quite against any conspiratorial thinking of any sort when analysing the news but you have here a situation whereby the call for a ceasefire looks like it is meant to intensify the fire, because that's what we heard Netanyahu say: 'If there is no ceasefire, there will be fire.' There is a sense that this ceasefire is an attempt to cover for more fire." (Video: Ramzy Baroud discusses the failed 'ceasefire' in Gaza, palestinechronicle.com, 15/7/14)
On Egypt's role in the matter, note this:
"Israel's largest-selling newspaper, Yedioth Ahronoth, quoted an Egyptian presidential adviser as saying Mr Sisi was in no hurry to assist and 'as far as he (Mr Sisi) is concerned, Israel can continue crushing Hamas'." (US warns Israel on Gaza assault, John Lyons, The Australian, 15/7/14)
On possible Australian foreknowledge, note this:
"Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday spoke to Prime Minister Tony Abbott about the conflict. An Israeli spokesman said Mr Netanyahu told Mr Abbott Israel was attempting to defend its citizens against Hamas, which 'fires missiles indiscriminately against Israeli civilians'." (Hamas fighters reject truce deal, John Lyons, The Australian, 16/7/14)
Finally, note this media release from Foreign Minister Julie Bishop:
"The Australian Government strongly condemns the decision of Hamas to reject a ceasefire to hostilities between Israel and the extremist groups in Gaza. Hamas claims to represent Gaza, yet it has jeopardised the welfare of its own people by rejecting the proposal for a ceasefire. The Israeli Government demonstrated its leadership by accepting the Egyptian-brokered ceasefire proposal... The Australian Government has listed Hamas as a terrorist organisation pursuant to UN Security Council Resolution 1373, which deals with the prevention and suppression of terrorist acts." (17/7/14)
"Look, the story goes something like this. It is quite fishy:
"Netanyahu calls Sisi. After the call, Egypt issues an initiative of sorts without consulting Hamas.
"Suddenly, the Israeli government, that would never normally make a decision so fast to approve a ceasefire by another country, even if it were the US, immediately approves, in no time, the Egyptian initiative, knowing that Hamas would say no because it was never consulted.
"Soon after, Netanyahu goes to the press and says: 'Now that Hamas has not accept the ceasefire, we have the right, the international legitimacy, to continue our campaign against Gaza, and even expand it.
"Right after that, Kerry says: 'This is a despicable silence on the part of Hamas, and Israel has a right to defend itself.
"All in all, this begs a lot of questions. There seems here to have been an effort to undercut, to undermine, an Arab/American initiative to bring something forward that takes into consideration both Hamas' demands and Israel's. I am quite against any conspiratorial thinking of any sort when analysing the news but you have here a situation whereby the call for a ceasefire looks like it is meant to intensify the fire, because that's what we heard Netanyahu say: 'If there is no ceasefire, there will be fire.' There is a sense that this ceasefire is an attempt to cover for more fire." (Video: Ramzy Baroud discusses the failed 'ceasefire' in Gaza, palestinechronicle.com, 15/7/14)
On Egypt's role in the matter, note this:
"Israel's largest-selling newspaper, Yedioth Ahronoth, quoted an Egyptian presidential adviser as saying Mr Sisi was in no hurry to assist and 'as far as he (Mr Sisi) is concerned, Israel can continue crushing Hamas'." (US warns Israel on Gaza assault, John Lyons, The Australian, 15/7/14)
On possible Australian foreknowledge, note this:
"Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday spoke to Prime Minister Tony Abbott about the conflict. An Israeli spokesman said Mr Netanyahu told Mr Abbott Israel was attempting to defend its citizens against Hamas, which 'fires missiles indiscriminately against Israeli civilians'." (Hamas fighters reject truce deal, John Lyons, The Australian, 16/7/14)
Finally, note this media release from Foreign Minister Julie Bishop:
"The Australian Government strongly condemns the decision of Hamas to reject a ceasefire to hostilities between Israel and the extremist groups in Gaza. Hamas claims to represent Gaza, yet it has jeopardised the welfare of its own people by rejecting the proposal for a ceasefire. The Israeli Government demonstrated its leadership by accepting the Egyptian-brokered ceasefire proposal... The Australian Government has listed Hamas as a terrorist organisation pursuant to UN Security Council Resolution 1373, which deals with the prevention and suppression of terrorist acts." (17/7/14)
Wednesday, June 25, 2014
Peter Greste & the Elephant in the Room
"What a pity Peter Greste isn't an American. If he were, the US would have promptly suspended all the millions of dollars of military aid to Egypt, pending a presidential pardon..."
So begins a letter in today's Sydney Morning Herald.
Let's get one thing straight here: even if Egyptian jails were full to overflowing with Americans, the United States still wouldn't turn off its estimated US$1.5billion annual aid flow to Egypt.
But don't expect any ms media commentator or pundit to tell you why this is so. It's an ELEPHANT-in-the-room thing.
The following report is probably about as close as the ms media will ever get to the beast:
"The US State Department spokeswoman bobbed and ducked and weaved for a full 20 minutes, determined not to state what seemed obvious: that in the midst of Middle East chaos, Egypt is just too important an ally to cut adrift, no matter how anti-democratic its behaviour. (Despite talk, no avoiding the truth about Egypt, Nick O'Malley, Sydney Morning Herald, 25/6/14)
"Before the briefing... both the White House and the Secretary of State John Kerry had issued stern statements about Peter Greste and his al-Jazeera colleagues. 'The prosecution of journalists for reporting information that does not coincide with the government of Egypt's narrative flouts the most basic standards of media freedom...' said the White House. The tone of Mr Kerry's statement was similar. 'Injustices like these simply cannot stand if Egypt is to move forward in the way that President as-Sisi... told me just yesterday...' After that meeting... Mr Kerry had said he had come to reaffirm Washington's 'historic partnership' with Egypt, including hundreds of millions of dollars...
"The jarring disconnect between the sentencing and Mr Kerry's warm words made for a combative media briefing.
"'I'm curious, though,' a reporter asked State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf, 'did the secretary, in fact, raise these cases yesterday while he was in Egypt?'
"She responded: 'I think the secretary made very clear today our feelings... in his statement he called on the Egyptian government to review the political sentences...'
"Back and forth it went: '... how is this anything other than just a slap in the face to you guys, particularly after you've given them - you went ahead and released additional assistance?'
"Finally Ms Harf said: 'This is about the fact we have shared strategic interests, that the assistance we provide to them... is done in service of those shared strategic. It's all where the US national security interests lie'."
Shared strategic interests? US national security interests? What rubbish!
C'mon, Ms Harf, spit it out.
Another of your duckers and weavers, the former US press secretary PJ Crowley, managed it back in January 2011 when he was asked why the US still supported Mubarak when the Egyptian people wanted him out. This is what he said:
"We respect what Egypt contributes to the region. It is a stabilising force. It has made its own peace with Israel and is pursuing normal relations with Israel. We think that's important. We think that's a model that the region should adopt..." (See my 29/1/11 post US: Egypt Is All About Israel.)
There you go. It doesn't matter whether it's Sadat, Mubarak, Morsi, or Sisi. Whoever the Egyptian president is, and whatever he does, the US will continue to bribe him annually just to keep the Israelis happy.
[See also my posts Egypt: Life Support System for a Treaty (6/7/13), That Peace Treaty (9/2/11), A Likud Peace (15/2/09).]
So begins a letter in today's Sydney Morning Herald.
Let's get one thing straight here: even if Egyptian jails were full to overflowing with Americans, the United States still wouldn't turn off its estimated US$1.5billion annual aid flow to Egypt.
But don't expect any ms media commentator or pundit to tell you why this is so. It's an ELEPHANT-in-the-room thing.
The following report is probably about as close as the ms media will ever get to the beast:
"The US State Department spokeswoman bobbed and ducked and weaved for a full 20 minutes, determined not to state what seemed obvious: that in the midst of Middle East chaos, Egypt is just too important an ally to cut adrift, no matter how anti-democratic its behaviour. (Despite talk, no avoiding the truth about Egypt, Nick O'Malley, Sydney Morning Herald, 25/6/14)
"Before the briefing... both the White House and the Secretary of State John Kerry had issued stern statements about Peter Greste and his al-Jazeera colleagues. 'The prosecution of journalists for reporting information that does not coincide with the government of Egypt's narrative flouts the most basic standards of media freedom...' said the White House. The tone of Mr Kerry's statement was similar. 'Injustices like these simply cannot stand if Egypt is to move forward in the way that President as-Sisi... told me just yesterday...' After that meeting... Mr Kerry had said he had come to reaffirm Washington's 'historic partnership' with Egypt, including hundreds of millions of dollars...
"The jarring disconnect between the sentencing and Mr Kerry's warm words made for a combative media briefing.
"'I'm curious, though,' a reporter asked State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf, 'did the secretary, in fact, raise these cases yesterday while he was in Egypt?'
"She responded: 'I think the secretary made very clear today our feelings... in his statement he called on the Egyptian government to review the political sentences...'
"Back and forth it went: '... how is this anything other than just a slap in the face to you guys, particularly after you've given them - you went ahead and released additional assistance?'
"Finally Ms Harf said: 'This is about the fact we have shared strategic interests, that the assistance we provide to them... is done in service of those shared strategic. It's all where the US national security interests lie'."
Shared strategic interests? US national security interests? What rubbish!
C'mon, Ms Harf, spit it out.
Another of your duckers and weavers, the former US press secretary PJ Crowley, managed it back in January 2011 when he was asked why the US still supported Mubarak when the Egyptian people wanted him out. This is what he said:
"We respect what Egypt contributes to the region. It is a stabilising force. It has made its own peace with Israel and is pursuing normal relations with Israel. We think that's important. We think that's a model that the region should adopt..." (See my 29/1/11 post US: Egypt Is All About Israel.)
There you go. It doesn't matter whether it's Sadat, Mubarak, Morsi, or Sisi. Whoever the Egyptian president is, and whatever he does, the US will continue to bribe him annually just to keep the Israelis happy.
[See also my posts Egypt: Life Support System for a Treaty (6/7/13), That Peace Treaty (9/2/11), A Likud Peace (15/2/09).]
Friday, March 28, 2014
Zap!
The judicial horror unfolding in Egypt at the moment, with 529 pro-Morsi protesters given death sentences as 'terrorists', and another 683 facing execution for the same pretext, coincides with the release of a new Amnesty International report, Death Sentences & Executions: 2013.
China topped the list, judicially executing more people (estimated to be in the thousands) than any other country last year, followed by Iran (369), Iraq (169), Saudi Arabia (79), and the United States (39).
Turning to the section of the report on the Middle East and North Africa, apart from the above Middle Eastern nations, we see the following data on judicial executions: Yemen (13); Kuwait (5); the PA (3, in Gaza); judicial executions could not be confirmed for Egypt and Syria.
No Israel. Of course not! Israel doesn't do judicial executions.
But don't get too carried away. Israel does extra-judicial executions.
No charge. No trial. Just ZAP! Not in AI's report therefore.
In 2013, Israel extra-judicially executed - or ZAPPed - 36 Palestinians.
As Jessica Montell, executive director of Israeli human rights group, B'Tselem, said of this practice: "In [the Israeli 'justice' system] almost no one is required to take responsibility for the killing of Palestinians, and it provides no deterrence and reflects contempt for human life." (B'Tselem report: Israel killed 27 West Bank Palestinians, 9 Gazans in 2013, Gilli Cohen, Haaretz, 31/12/13)
China topped the list, judicially executing more people (estimated to be in the thousands) than any other country last year, followed by Iran (369), Iraq (169), Saudi Arabia (79), and the United States (39).
Turning to the section of the report on the Middle East and North Africa, apart from the above Middle Eastern nations, we see the following data on judicial executions: Yemen (13); Kuwait (5); the PA (3, in Gaza); judicial executions could not be confirmed for Egypt and Syria.
No Israel. Of course not! Israel doesn't do judicial executions.
But don't get too carried away. Israel does extra-judicial executions.
No charge. No trial. Just ZAP! Not in AI's report therefore.
In 2013, Israel extra-judicially executed - or ZAPPed - 36 Palestinians.
As Jessica Montell, executive director of Israeli human rights group, B'Tselem, said of this practice: "In [the Israeli 'justice' system] almost no one is required to take responsibility for the killing of Palestinians, and it provides no deterrence and reflects contempt for human life." (B'Tselem report: Israel killed 27 West Bank Palestinians, 9 Gazans in 2013, Gilli Cohen, Haaretz, 31/12/13)
Sunday, August 11, 2013
The New Nasser?
"The two men can be seen together all over central Cairo, on banners, flags and on posters on sale to tourists and locals... The first man is the pan-Arab nationalist former Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser, hammer of the Muslim Brotherhood, who died in 1970. The second is General Abdel Fatah as-Sisi, head of Egypt's armed forces and, since the July coup that ousted the Brotherhood-backed president, Mohamed Morsi, the supreme power in the country. In the coffee shops of Cairo, where political discussions have bounced off peeling walls since Nasser's death, a vigorous debate is taking place over whether Sisi has deliberately risen in the former's likeness - and what parallels between the two men's careers may mean for post-revolutionary Egypt. While Sisi has pledged stability as a central plank of the military-led government he will shepherd towards elections in 9 month's time, he has also tapped into themes that Nasser used to enshrine his legacy as one of modern Egypt's most celebrated figures... In his public appearances since the 3 July coup, Sisi has mirrored Nasser's key messages of nationalism, scepticism of Western intentions, Arab dignity and strong leadership." (Egypt wonders if army chief is another Nasser, Martin Chulov, The Guardian, 8/8/13)
"Yet, considering the society from which [Nasser] emerged, the obstacles which he overcame, the personnel available to him, one is compelled to give a fairly high rating to the man of the Suez and Aswan, of the Sinai, of Yemen, and of Abu-Zaabal (his concentration camp). In the words of a CIA agent who had dealings with him between 1952 and 1954 (quoted by Joachim Joesten): 'The problem with Nasser is that he has no vices. We can neither buy nor blackmail him. We hate this guy's guts, but we can't touch him: he's too clean...'" (Nasser, Jean Lacouture, 1973, pp 375-376)
So how just how 'clean' is Sisi?
"In August 2012, the newspaper at-Tahrir... reported that Gen. Sisi had 'strong ties with US officials on both diplomatic and military levels.' He had studied in Washington, attended several military conferences there, and engaged in 'co-operation with regard to war games and intelligence operations in recent years,' it said." (Profile: Egypt armed forces chief Abdul Fattah as-Sisi, bbc.co.uk, 3/7/13)
"Defense Minister Ehud Barak spoke by telephone to his Egyptian counterpart Gen. Abdel Fattah as-Sisi on Friday morning, according to Arabic-language news agency Al-Hayat. According to the report, al-Sisi affirmed Egypt's commitment to maintaining the 1979 Camp David peace treaty with Israel in the phone call, ahead of a meeting with Mohamed Morsy." ('Egypt affirms commitment to Israel peace treaty', The Jerusalem Post, 24/8/12)
Go figure.
"Yet, considering the society from which [Nasser] emerged, the obstacles which he overcame, the personnel available to him, one is compelled to give a fairly high rating to the man of the Suez and Aswan, of the Sinai, of Yemen, and of Abu-Zaabal (his concentration camp). In the words of a CIA agent who had dealings with him between 1952 and 1954 (quoted by Joachim Joesten): 'The problem with Nasser is that he has no vices. We can neither buy nor blackmail him. We hate this guy's guts, but we can't touch him: he's too clean...'" (Nasser, Jean Lacouture, 1973, pp 375-376)
So how just how 'clean' is Sisi?
"In August 2012, the newspaper at-Tahrir... reported that Gen. Sisi had 'strong ties with US officials on both diplomatic and military levels.' He had studied in Washington, attended several military conferences there, and engaged in 'co-operation with regard to war games and intelligence operations in recent years,' it said." (Profile: Egypt armed forces chief Abdul Fattah as-Sisi, bbc.co.uk, 3/7/13)
"Defense Minister Ehud Barak spoke by telephone to his Egyptian counterpart Gen. Abdel Fattah as-Sisi on Friday morning, according to Arabic-language news agency Al-Hayat. According to the report, al-Sisi affirmed Egypt's commitment to maintaining the 1979 Camp David peace treaty with Israel in the phone call, ahead of a meeting with Mohamed Morsy." ('Egypt affirms commitment to Israel peace treaty', The Jerusalem Post, 24/8/12)
Go figure.
Friday, July 19, 2013
Blair the Barbarian
The chutzpah. The chutzpah:
"So what should the West do [about Egypt]? Egypt is the latest reminder that the region is in turmoil and won't leave us alone, however much we may wish it would. Disengagement is not an option, because the status quo is not an option. Any decision not to act is itself a decision of vast consequences." (We can't let Egypt collapse, Tony Blair, The Australian, 17/7/13)
The Middle East won't leave us alone, however much we may wish it would. Just like Iraq forced our hand, eh Tony?
Here's imperialism's latest pitch from a practitioner of the art: If that perfectly innocent bystander, the West, invades, or destabilises, or otherwise meddles in the affairs of a Middle Eastern country, it's only because said country has left it with no choice in the matter.
Yeah, right.
There is nothing new, of course, in such talk. It's just another variation on Kipling's 'white man's burden'. (See my 5/11/11 post Rudyard Kipling Redux.)
The following reflection on the subject of European imperialism in the Middle East says it all. It's taken from a book published in 1940, The New Spirit in Arab Lands, by an Arab-American, H.I. Katibah:
"There was a time, in the distant past, when imperialism wore a halo around its head; when wholesale murder on the battlefield assumed a mystical quality of divine vindication, if not exultation. There was a time when Jehovah was called the Lord of Hosts, when the almighty God judged among the nations of the world by the sword and the javelin. The great Thothmes III, whom James Breasted called the first empire builder of history, could then appropriately put in the mouth of his God the words of a paean which has come down to us as a monument at Karnak: I have come that I may cause thee to tread down them that are in the marshes; The lands of Meten tremble for fear of thee.
"We feel a thrill of vicarious pride and majesty as we listen to Ammon-Ra, the supreme Egyptian God, adressing his favourite son, the king: I cause them to behold they majesty as a fierce-eyed lion, while thou makest them to be corpses throughout their valley.
"That day has long past. A different philosophy of life has come to the world to disturb those who deify selfishness and glorify greed. Today imperialism has fallen on evil days; it has 'lost face' with all people of intelligence and integrity. It slinks about like a cowardly villain, taking refuge in hypocritical self-justification. It has stooped to apologize and to defend itself like a convicted criminal before the bar of justice. The secret pang of conscience and blush of shame which we now feel as we grimly go about our business of bombing innocent women and children from the sky were blithely absent in a Thothmes, a Nebuchadnezzar or a Genghis Khan.
"This most illustrious of Egyptian monarchs, whose conquests extended from upper Egypt to Megiddo and the confines of Mesopotamia in the 16th century before Christ, would feel quite out of place among the conquerors of our present day. How absurd would it sound to our ears if the Karnak monument had recorded that Thothmes III had conquered the Tehenu and the Utentiu in order to bring them the bounties and beneficences of Egyptian civilization, to prepare them ultimately for self-rule! It would have been equally absurd for Thothmes to have announced to the world, perhaps with his tongue in his cheek, that he was carrying the 'brown man's burden' in darkest Africa, or in white Syria. No such thoughts disturbed the mind of Thothmes III. If some of his unfortunate enemies were spared, if some war slave rose to the rank of a Moses and was brought up with the Pharaoh's children, that was only incidental to a social system that recognized no freedom or rights for the vanquished. The threats of Thothmes were as fearful as his favors were condescending.
"If we argue that there is some grain of truth and honesty in the humanitarian claims of the modern imperialists, let us not forget that Thothmes and his peers did not so thoroughly crush and annihilate their enemies as their boasts would indicate; their cruelties on the battlefield were not so grim as one would gather from reading their monuments. We have the authority of Breasted himself that Thothmes 'launched his armies upon Asia with one hand and with the other crushed the extortionate taxgatherer.'
"That was ancient imperialism at its best, unmasked, yea naked, standing like a beautiful and mighty savage in the face of the sun, fearful and fascinating like a very God, of one piece with the thundering torrents, the lightning and the earthquake. Not so is modern imperialism which looks more grotesque than grand. Its savagery is atrocious and cunning; the breath of its lying propaganda, like that of a repulsive monster, kills ere it reaches its victim. It is a reversion to barbarism shorn of its innocent beauty and majestic grandeur." (pp 116-118)
"So what should the West do [about Egypt]? Egypt is the latest reminder that the region is in turmoil and won't leave us alone, however much we may wish it would. Disengagement is not an option, because the status quo is not an option. Any decision not to act is itself a decision of vast consequences." (We can't let Egypt collapse, Tony Blair, The Australian, 17/7/13)
The Middle East won't leave us alone, however much we may wish it would. Just like Iraq forced our hand, eh Tony?
Here's imperialism's latest pitch from a practitioner of the art: If that perfectly innocent bystander, the West, invades, or destabilises, or otherwise meddles in the affairs of a Middle Eastern country, it's only because said country has left it with no choice in the matter.
Yeah, right.
There is nothing new, of course, in such talk. It's just another variation on Kipling's 'white man's burden'. (See my 5/11/11 post Rudyard Kipling Redux.)
The following reflection on the subject of European imperialism in the Middle East says it all. It's taken from a book published in 1940, The New Spirit in Arab Lands, by an Arab-American, H.I. Katibah:
"There was a time, in the distant past, when imperialism wore a halo around its head; when wholesale murder on the battlefield assumed a mystical quality of divine vindication, if not exultation. There was a time when Jehovah was called the Lord of Hosts, when the almighty God judged among the nations of the world by the sword and the javelin. The great Thothmes III, whom James Breasted called the first empire builder of history, could then appropriately put in the mouth of his God the words of a paean which has come down to us as a monument at Karnak: I have come that I may cause thee to tread down them that are in the marshes; The lands of Meten tremble for fear of thee.
"We feel a thrill of vicarious pride and majesty as we listen to Ammon-Ra, the supreme Egyptian God, adressing his favourite son, the king: I cause them to behold they majesty as a fierce-eyed lion, while thou makest them to be corpses throughout their valley.
"That day has long past. A different philosophy of life has come to the world to disturb those who deify selfishness and glorify greed. Today imperialism has fallen on evil days; it has 'lost face' with all people of intelligence and integrity. It slinks about like a cowardly villain, taking refuge in hypocritical self-justification. It has stooped to apologize and to defend itself like a convicted criminal before the bar of justice. The secret pang of conscience and blush of shame which we now feel as we grimly go about our business of bombing innocent women and children from the sky were blithely absent in a Thothmes, a Nebuchadnezzar or a Genghis Khan.
"This most illustrious of Egyptian monarchs, whose conquests extended from upper Egypt to Megiddo and the confines of Mesopotamia in the 16th century before Christ, would feel quite out of place among the conquerors of our present day. How absurd would it sound to our ears if the Karnak monument had recorded that Thothmes III had conquered the Tehenu and the Utentiu in order to bring them the bounties and beneficences of Egyptian civilization, to prepare them ultimately for self-rule! It would have been equally absurd for Thothmes to have announced to the world, perhaps with his tongue in his cheek, that he was carrying the 'brown man's burden' in darkest Africa, or in white Syria. No such thoughts disturbed the mind of Thothmes III. If some of his unfortunate enemies were spared, if some war slave rose to the rank of a Moses and was brought up with the Pharaoh's children, that was only incidental to a social system that recognized no freedom or rights for the vanquished. The threats of Thothmes were as fearful as his favors were condescending.
"If we argue that there is some grain of truth and honesty in the humanitarian claims of the modern imperialists, let us not forget that Thothmes and his peers did not so thoroughly crush and annihilate their enemies as their boasts would indicate; their cruelties on the battlefield were not so grim as one would gather from reading their monuments. We have the authority of Breasted himself that Thothmes 'launched his armies upon Asia with one hand and with the other crushed the extortionate taxgatherer.'
"That was ancient imperialism at its best, unmasked, yea naked, standing like a beautiful and mighty savage in the face of the sun, fearful and fascinating like a very God, of one piece with the thundering torrents, the lightning and the earthquake. Not so is modern imperialism which looks more grotesque than grand. Its savagery is atrocious and cunning; the breath of its lying propaganda, like that of a repulsive monster, kills ere it reaches its victim. It is a reversion to barbarism shorn of its innocent beauty and majestic grandeur." (pp 116-118)
Tuesday, July 16, 2013
Our ABC Owned
The following interview with George Galloway on ABC Radio National's Breakfast program on July 4 tells us as much about the interviewer as it does about the interviewee, wonderfully exposing the Murdoch press fantasy of the ABC as a kind of leftist bastion for the nonsense it is.
Radio National's too-clever-by-half interviewer, James Carleton, was hilariously unmasked by Galloway as just another lazy peddler of received - which is to say, USraeli - 'wisdom' on the Middle East. I simply cannot imagine him, for example, approaching an interview with US Syrian interventionist John McCain or Israeli spinmeister Mark Regev in quite the same condescending way. Be that as it may, Galloway easily put Carleton in his place, with even Breakfast presenter Fran Kelly finding it necessary to rush to salve her colleague's wounds following the conclusion of the interview. Enjoy:
Fran Kelly: But first in Australia at the moment is the radical and controversial British MP George Galloway, a fierce critic of both the former Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak and his democratically-elected successor Mohammed Morsi. GG is known more famously for his fierce criticism of the US, of Israel, and of his own country's foreign policy. In fact, he was expelled from the British Labour Party for that but twice returned to the House of Commons with upset victories with his small socialist party called Respect. GG twice met with Saddam Hussein. He's spoken with Syria's President Bashar Al-Asad. He's been deported from Egypt by Hosni Mubarak, and is currently a Press TV reporter for Iran. He spoke yesterday with James Carleton and this interview was recorded before the Egyptian army militarily intervened in Egypt.
GG: Instability is inherent in any revolution. Revolution is a process not an event. The French Revolution took more than 10 years. The Bolshevik Revolution more than 6 years. And these Arab revolutions are at most 2 years old, so it's often two steps forward and one step back. Sometimes one step forward, two steps back, and that's where Egypt seems to be today. The long dictatorship from which I was deported and declared persona non grata of Hosni Mubarak is gone but the new dispensation has been born but not grown up yet. One thing is for sure, President Morsi has only himself to blame. He had it all in his hands but he blew it. The Muslim Brotherhood failed to share power and predictably it has utterly failed. Millions of people more than had demanded the removal of Hosni Mubarak are on the streets demonstrating that the President should go just 12 months after a very convincing presidential election victory by him. It's sad but I think it's inevitable and inherent in the Muslim Brotherhood's view of the world, not just in Egypt but in Turkey, for example, where Prime Minister Erdogan is facing rather similar challenges.
JC: Do you see no role for organised Sunni Islam in a democratic, plural context then?
GG: That's why I'm sad because I do. Political Islam is an entirely legitimate political strand. It doesn't have to be like the Taliban or al-Qaida. It can be successful as for a long time Erdogan's government in Turkey was successful. President Morsi I'm afraid never got past first base.
JC: Let's take us to Syria where there aren't any bases in a sense. The long intergenerational dictatorship of the Asads. How do you characterise the situation in that country?
GG: The truth is no one can win the war. The regime cannot prevail over the opposition and the opposition cannot bring down the regime, and in any stalemate the only option is to go to the table. But one of the reasons the opposition has not been able to overcome the Syrian regime is because they have managed to terrify every religious and ethnic minority in Syria, thus consolidating all of them behind President Bashar al-Asad.
JC: Well, let me put it to you that that only began when the conflict metastisised. What it began as was as a pro-democracy, pro-Christian, pro-minority, pro-Muslim pluralist call for demonstrations, and it was Asad whose response was to torture and send in the snipers.
GG: Well, that's true up to a point. I don't know the extent to which Christians were ever involved but most of what you said there I agree with. That said, the militarisation of the Syrian uprising was, it's now clear, a plan of many for a very long time. The Muslim Brotherhood uprising in Syria as long ago as 1982 was drowned in blood and they've been nursing their wrath ever since.
JC: Drowned by the father of the present dictator, Hafiz al-Asad, who destroyed every single rebel and another 20,000 civilians in Hama to add good measure.
GG: Indeed, and was warmly applauded for doing so, privately if not publicly, by most of the Western governments who did not want to see the Muslim Brotherhood come to power in Syria. And be careful what you wish for because what lies behind your questions is a wish that this trend should succeed. But you see in Egypt where that trend can lead. Me, on the other hand, I was with the uprising in Hama in 1982 because I believe that the Muslims have to have the government that they themselves choose, not one that's imposed upon them by others. But most Western governments supported the late Hafiz al-Asad's crushing of that uprising. It had profound consequences. All I'm saying is that the idea that all of this came out of the current Syrian regime's response to democratic protests is wrong. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the international Muslim Brotherhood, had long planned an uprising in Syria and they got one and look at the result. It ends in the cutting open of peoples' chests and the eating of their hearts, all the while chanting the name of God into the nearest video camera to put it up on YouTube in the belief, apparently, that people will find this appealing, but they don't, and most Syrians are terrified by it which is why they've clung to the jacket of President Asad and that's why he's prevailing I think.
JC: Of course we can't say they've clung to Asad's jacket by any precise measure because he doesn't allow for free or fair elections.
GG: Although he has been advocating them. I personally asked Bashar al-Asad the day after the fall of the Tunisian dictator Ben Ali to call a presidential election right there and then. I like to think he was interested in doing that but other elements of the regime probably precluded that. But I've got a surprise piece of news for you: if there was an election tomorrow for president of Syria, I believe that Bashar would still win it despite a hundred thousand deaths, despite a million plus refugees, and that would be a testament not so much to whatever qualities he has but how terrified the people are of what seems to be the alternative.
JC: And the terror goes, you must concede, in both directions. It's not as if only minorities - Alawis, Christians, Druze, Kurds, feel annihilation. The people of Homs, Deraa and elsewhere are experiencing annihilation, and they fear that should the revolution fail or surrender it will only get worse.
GG: Most of the dying, at least for the past 7 months, has been on the government side, but it's true, there are horrific episodes of violence almost beyond our imagination, but of course representative government will be the key and it's up to the Americans to persuade their clients, the Syrian opposition, to come to the negotiating table.
JC: But how can you suggest that America is the barrier to representative democracy in Syria, not Bashar?
GG: Because Bashar is there in Geneva and has been since Kofi Annan proposed democratic transition. It's the opposition that hasn't turned up. You know this very well. The opposition cannot even agree on a line to be taken towards negotiations in Geneva. Now the US and its clients in the Persian Gulf are the key to this. A regime broadly representative of the Syrian people can be constructed.
JC: And does that require both intervening collections of powers withdraw, not just the Gulf states, but also Hezbollah and Iran, and with a diplomatic cover from Moscow?
GG: Well, Hezbollah were the very last foreign force to enter the war in Syria when often, listening to mainstream media, [one] imagines that they were the first. They were the last to join.
JC: And they would do well to be the first to leave, wouldn't they?
GG: I think that the Lebanese and Iranian presence in Syria is, of course, a reflection of the sectarian divisions that have increasingly become dominant in this conflict. It goes without saying that as the sectarianisation of politics in Syria recedes, so will the presence of their neighbours and their co-Islamists...
JC: But isn't the order the wrong way round? Foreign powers get out first, then...
GG: If you could agree with me right now that every foreigner will withdraw from Syria, no one would be more delighted than me. The problem is people like you, if you don't mind me saying, have a very selective view of which foreigners you want to withdraw.
JC: No, no, no, I'm talking about the jihadis, the Chechens, the Saudis, the Qataris...
GG: Well, wonderful, let's all...
JC: ... and the Iranians.
GG: ... let's all... Frankly, nobody would be happier than the Hezbollah. They don't want to send their soldiers to die in Syria. Their people have been taken from the front with Israel. But of course you and I both know that the Chechens and the Libyans and Australians, hundreds of Australians, who have gone as foreign fighters to Syria cannot be withdrawn by you or me or by my government or your government because they're determined upon martyrdom or victory and that's the problem. These people will somehow have to be withdrawn from this battlefield before others can credibly be asked to do so.
JC: Let me ask you about your work as presenter with Press TV, the broadcaster of the Iranian government.
GG: Actually, I have 3 TV shows. One is with RT, Russia Today, the second with Al-Mayadeen TV, which is a Beirut-based Arabic TV station, and a third with Press TV, and if ABC want to hire me tomorrow, I'm available.
JC: I'm afraid that's above my pay scale.
GG: I'll appear on any television station that will not interfere with what I have to say.
JC: To say that you'll appear with anyone so long as they don't tell you what to say means that you'll appear, logically speaking, with some terrible people.
GG: Yeah, people like Sky News, the BBC, ABC - some of them are truly terrible. I've even been many times on Fox News and you don't get much more terrible than that.
JC: Do you have reservations about the reportage of Press TV?
GG: None whatsoever, anymore than I had any reservation about talking to the ABC which has a take on things...
JC: You talk...
GG: ... with which I profoundly disagree.
JC: You accepted an invitation to be interviewed by the ABC. You are employed as a presenter from Iran's Press TV. There's an important distinction.
GG: Sure, but it's an important caveat this, because what I say on Press TV is what I say on ABC TV and is what I've always said, and I think that's the test, not who owns it.. Look, Rupert Murdoch is the most venal press baron of them all but if he gave me a program on Sky News tomorrow, I'd take it because I know that I would speak my truth on Sky News as I speak it everywhere else.
JC: So that means you have reservations but would also be on Fox. You just seek to counter it with your own consistent views like, for example, Press TV, as I say, the government-owned station in Iran that...
GG: Well, you're a government-owned station. Why do you say that with such a high nose?
JC: Because...
GG: Why do you say that as if being government-owned is somehow beyond the pale?
JC: ... because the...
GG: You're government-owned. The government pays your salary.
JC: OK, so you seriously liken the ABC with its independent board and charter...
GG: Ah...
JC: ... with Press TV...
GG: Please don't make me laugh... independent board and charter. You toe the line of the Australian state. Press TV toes the line of the Iranian state. Don't pretend you got a fur coat on because I can see your drawers. The fact is government-owned media stations are government-owned media stations. Criticise what they've said, and you're about to, that's fine, but don't criticise them because they're government-owned when you get a government paycheck in your wallet. I don't share that interpretation.
JC: Well, that's simply based on following Press TV and their reportage. Take for example when they legalised gay marriage in Minnesota. That took place, quote, because the state is "known to be under the influence of Zionist, Jewish and homosexual figures."
GG: I didn't see that reportage...
JC: I'm happy to give you the copy.
GG: Neither have I had it quoted at me. I'm in favour of gay marriage. I have never said a word against Jews. I'm answerable for what I say. If I worked for Fox News, I wouldn't be responsible for Bill O'Reilly.
JC: You've not met me until today but you're certain I'm a mouthpiece for a government.
GG: I didn't say you were a mouthpiece. I said that you have a government paycheck in your pocket like a Press TV employee has a government paycheck in his. It's hardly fair to throw that at me.
JC: I wasn't so much as throwing it at you as seeking to learn the degree to which your views coincided with your government employer, and I'm glad we got there notwithstanding the temperature.
GG (chuckling): Yeah, well, sometimes with heat comes light.
JC (chastened*): George Galloway, thank you very much for being with us.
GG (with a twinkle in his eye): You're welcome.
Fran Kelly: George Galloway there and I guess government-owned is not government-controlled, and that's the difference... George Galloway was once Spectator magazine's debater of the year so our James handled himself pretty well.
I bet that's the last time we'll ever hear Galloway on our ABC.
[*Listen to the interview online and you'll see what I mean.]
Radio National's too-clever-by-half interviewer, James Carleton, was hilariously unmasked by Galloway as just another lazy peddler of received - which is to say, USraeli - 'wisdom' on the Middle East. I simply cannot imagine him, for example, approaching an interview with US Syrian interventionist John McCain or Israeli spinmeister Mark Regev in quite the same condescending way. Be that as it may, Galloway easily put Carleton in his place, with even Breakfast presenter Fran Kelly finding it necessary to rush to salve her colleague's wounds following the conclusion of the interview. Enjoy:
Fran Kelly: But first in Australia at the moment is the radical and controversial British MP George Galloway, a fierce critic of both the former Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak and his democratically-elected successor Mohammed Morsi. GG is known more famously for his fierce criticism of the US, of Israel, and of his own country's foreign policy. In fact, he was expelled from the British Labour Party for that but twice returned to the House of Commons with upset victories with his small socialist party called Respect. GG twice met with Saddam Hussein. He's spoken with Syria's President Bashar Al-Asad. He's been deported from Egypt by Hosni Mubarak, and is currently a Press TV reporter for Iran. He spoke yesterday with James Carleton and this interview was recorded before the Egyptian army militarily intervened in Egypt.
GG: Instability is inherent in any revolution. Revolution is a process not an event. The French Revolution took more than 10 years. The Bolshevik Revolution more than 6 years. And these Arab revolutions are at most 2 years old, so it's often two steps forward and one step back. Sometimes one step forward, two steps back, and that's where Egypt seems to be today. The long dictatorship from which I was deported and declared persona non grata of Hosni Mubarak is gone but the new dispensation has been born but not grown up yet. One thing is for sure, President Morsi has only himself to blame. He had it all in his hands but he blew it. The Muslim Brotherhood failed to share power and predictably it has utterly failed. Millions of people more than had demanded the removal of Hosni Mubarak are on the streets demonstrating that the President should go just 12 months after a very convincing presidential election victory by him. It's sad but I think it's inevitable and inherent in the Muslim Brotherhood's view of the world, not just in Egypt but in Turkey, for example, where Prime Minister Erdogan is facing rather similar challenges.
JC: Do you see no role for organised Sunni Islam in a democratic, plural context then?
GG: That's why I'm sad because I do. Political Islam is an entirely legitimate political strand. It doesn't have to be like the Taliban or al-Qaida. It can be successful as for a long time Erdogan's government in Turkey was successful. President Morsi I'm afraid never got past first base.
JC: Let's take us to Syria where there aren't any bases in a sense. The long intergenerational dictatorship of the Asads. How do you characterise the situation in that country?
GG: The truth is no one can win the war. The regime cannot prevail over the opposition and the opposition cannot bring down the regime, and in any stalemate the only option is to go to the table. But one of the reasons the opposition has not been able to overcome the Syrian regime is because they have managed to terrify every religious and ethnic minority in Syria, thus consolidating all of them behind President Bashar al-Asad.
JC: Well, let me put it to you that that only began when the conflict metastisised. What it began as was as a pro-democracy, pro-Christian, pro-minority, pro-Muslim pluralist call for demonstrations, and it was Asad whose response was to torture and send in the snipers.
GG: Well, that's true up to a point. I don't know the extent to which Christians were ever involved but most of what you said there I agree with. That said, the militarisation of the Syrian uprising was, it's now clear, a plan of many for a very long time. The Muslim Brotherhood uprising in Syria as long ago as 1982 was drowned in blood and they've been nursing their wrath ever since.
JC: Drowned by the father of the present dictator, Hafiz al-Asad, who destroyed every single rebel and another 20,000 civilians in Hama to add good measure.
GG: Indeed, and was warmly applauded for doing so, privately if not publicly, by most of the Western governments who did not want to see the Muslim Brotherhood come to power in Syria. And be careful what you wish for because what lies behind your questions is a wish that this trend should succeed. But you see in Egypt where that trend can lead. Me, on the other hand, I was with the uprising in Hama in 1982 because I believe that the Muslims have to have the government that they themselves choose, not one that's imposed upon them by others. But most Western governments supported the late Hafiz al-Asad's crushing of that uprising. It had profound consequences. All I'm saying is that the idea that all of this came out of the current Syrian regime's response to democratic protests is wrong. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the international Muslim Brotherhood, had long planned an uprising in Syria and they got one and look at the result. It ends in the cutting open of peoples' chests and the eating of their hearts, all the while chanting the name of God into the nearest video camera to put it up on YouTube in the belief, apparently, that people will find this appealing, but they don't, and most Syrians are terrified by it which is why they've clung to the jacket of President Asad and that's why he's prevailing I think.
JC: Of course we can't say they've clung to Asad's jacket by any precise measure because he doesn't allow for free or fair elections.
GG: Although he has been advocating them. I personally asked Bashar al-Asad the day after the fall of the Tunisian dictator Ben Ali to call a presidential election right there and then. I like to think he was interested in doing that but other elements of the regime probably precluded that. But I've got a surprise piece of news for you: if there was an election tomorrow for president of Syria, I believe that Bashar would still win it despite a hundred thousand deaths, despite a million plus refugees, and that would be a testament not so much to whatever qualities he has but how terrified the people are of what seems to be the alternative.
JC: And the terror goes, you must concede, in both directions. It's not as if only minorities - Alawis, Christians, Druze, Kurds, feel annihilation. The people of Homs, Deraa and elsewhere are experiencing annihilation, and they fear that should the revolution fail or surrender it will only get worse.
GG: Most of the dying, at least for the past 7 months, has been on the government side, but it's true, there are horrific episodes of violence almost beyond our imagination, but of course representative government will be the key and it's up to the Americans to persuade their clients, the Syrian opposition, to come to the negotiating table.
JC: But how can you suggest that America is the barrier to representative democracy in Syria, not Bashar?
GG: Because Bashar is there in Geneva and has been since Kofi Annan proposed democratic transition. It's the opposition that hasn't turned up. You know this very well. The opposition cannot even agree on a line to be taken towards negotiations in Geneva. Now the US and its clients in the Persian Gulf are the key to this. A regime broadly representative of the Syrian people can be constructed.
JC: And does that require both intervening collections of powers withdraw, not just the Gulf states, but also Hezbollah and Iran, and with a diplomatic cover from Moscow?
GG: Well, Hezbollah were the very last foreign force to enter the war in Syria when often, listening to mainstream media, [one] imagines that they were the first. They were the last to join.
JC: And they would do well to be the first to leave, wouldn't they?
GG: I think that the Lebanese and Iranian presence in Syria is, of course, a reflection of the sectarian divisions that have increasingly become dominant in this conflict. It goes without saying that as the sectarianisation of politics in Syria recedes, so will the presence of their neighbours and their co-Islamists...
JC: But isn't the order the wrong way round? Foreign powers get out first, then...
GG: If you could agree with me right now that every foreigner will withdraw from Syria, no one would be more delighted than me. The problem is people like you, if you don't mind me saying, have a very selective view of which foreigners you want to withdraw.
JC: No, no, no, I'm talking about the jihadis, the Chechens, the Saudis, the Qataris...
GG: Well, wonderful, let's all...
JC: ... and the Iranians.
GG: ... let's all... Frankly, nobody would be happier than the Hezbollah. They don't want to send their soldiers to die in Syria. Their people have been taken from the front with Israel. But of course you and I both know that the Chechens and the Libyans and Australians, hundreds of Australians, who have gone as foreign fighters to Syria cannot be withdrawn by you or me or by my government or your government because they're determined upon martyrdom or victory and that's the problem. These people will somehow have to be withdrawn from this battlefield before others can credibly be asked to do so.
JC: Let me ask you about your work as presenter with Press TV, the broadcaster of the Iranian government.
GG: Actually, I have 3 TV shows. One is with RT, Russia Today, the second with Al-Mayadeen TV, which is a Beirut-based Arabic TV station, and a third with Press TV, and if ABC want to hire me tomorrow, I'm available.
JC: I'm afraid that's above my pay scale.
GG: I'll appear on any television station that will not interfere with what I have to say.
JC: To say that you'll appear with anyone so long as they don't tell you what to say means that you'll appear, logically speaking, with some terrible people.
GG: Yeah, people like Sky News, the BBC, ABC - some of them are truly terrible. I've even been many times on Fox News and you don't get much more terrible than that.
JC: Do you have reservations about the reportage of Press TV?
GG: None whatsoever, anymore than I had any reservation about talking to the ABC which has a take on things...
JC: You talk...
GG: ... with which I profoundly disagree.
JC: You accepted an invitation to be interviewed by the ABC. You are employed as a presenter from Iran's Press TV. There's an important distinction.
GG: Sure, but it's an important caveat this, because what I say on Press TV is what I say on ABC TV and is what I've always said, and I think that's the test, not who owns it.. Look, Rupert Murdoch is the most venal press baron of them all but if he gave me a program on Sky News tomorrow, I'd take it because I know that I would speak my truth on Sky News as I speak it everywhere else.
JC: So that means you have reservations but would also be on Fox. You just seek to counter it with your own consistent views like, for example, Press TV, as I say, the government-owned station in Iran that...
GG: Well, you're a government-owned station. Why do you say that with such a high nose?
JC: Because...
GG: Why do you say that as if being government-owned is somehow beyond the pale?
JC: ... because the...
GG: You're government-owned. The government pays your salary.
JC: OK, so you seriously liken the ABC with its independent board and charter...
GG: Ah...
JC: ... with Press TV...
GG: Please don't make me laugh... independent board and charter. You toe the line of the Australian state. Press TV toes the line of the Iranian state. Don't pretend you got a fur coat on because I can see your drawers. The fact is government-owned media stations are government-owned media stations. Criticise what they've said, and you're about to, that's fine, but don't criticise them because they're government-owned when you get a government paycheck in your wallet. I don't share that interpretation.
JC: Well, that's simply based on following Press TV and their reportage. Take for example when they legalised gay marriage in Minnesota. That took place, quote, because the state is "known to be under the influence of Zionist, Jewish and homosexual figures."
GG: I didn't see that reportage...
JC: I'm happy to give you the copy.
GG: Neither have I had it quoted at me. I'm in favour of gay marriage. I have never said a word against Jews. I'm answerable for what I say. If I worked for Fox News, I wouldn't be responsible for Bill O'Reilly.
JC: You've not met me until today but you're certain I'm a mouthpiece for a government.
GG: I didn't say you were a mouthpiece. I said that you have a government paycheck in your pocket like a Press TV employee has a government paycheck in his. It's hardly fair to throw that at me.
JC: I wasn't so much as throwing it at you as seeking to learn the degree to which your views coincided with your government employer, and I'm glad we got there notwithstanding the temperature.
GG (chuckling): Yeah, well, sometimes with heat comes light.
JC (chastened*): George Galloway, thank you very much for being with us.
GG (with a twinkle in his eye): You're welcome.
Fran Kelly: George Galloway there and I guess government-owned is not government-controlled, and that's the difference... George Galloway was once Spectator magazine's debater of the year so our James handled himself pretty well.
I bet that's the last time we'll ever hear Galloway on our ABC.
[*Listen to the interview online and you'll see what I mean.]
Saturday, July 6, 2013
Egypt: Life-Support System for a Treaty
The following two sentences from the Australian's July 5 editorial on the fall of Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi encapsulate the only real importance Egypt and its people have for USrael and its client states:
"Egypt is of immense strategic importance. The 1979 Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty maintained by Mr Morsi forms the bedrock of peace in the Middle East.* Any descent into further chaos would doubtless place such treaty commitments at risk." (True democracy must now prevail for people of Egypt: Stability & security crucial in wake of the Arab Spring)
This treaty, brokered by US President Jimmy Carter in the wake of the Arab-Israeli war of 1973, explains the following otherwise strange American behaviour:
"The Obama administration has stopped short of calling the events of the past week a coup because of the implications that would have for the $US1.3 billion in conditional aid that flows to the Egyptian armed forces each year." (Egypt remains an uneasy nation under guard, Jason Koutsoukis, Sydney Morning Herald, 6/7/13)
For USrael and its clients (including Australia), the replacement of Morsi by Mansour matters little so long as the treaty with Israel is preserved.
For them, Egypt is merely a life-support system for a treaty.
[*For a backgrounder on this issue, see my posts A Likud Peace (15/2/09) and That Peace Treaty... (9/2/11).]
"Egypt is of immense strategic importance. The 1979 Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty maintained by Mr Morsi forms the bedrock of peace in the Middle East.* Any descent into further chaos would doubtless place such treaty commitments at risk." (True democracy must now prevail for people of Egypt: Stability & security crucial in wake of the Arab Spring)
This treaty, brokered by US President Jimmy Carter in the wake of the Arab-Israeli war of 1973, explains the following otherwise strange American behaviour:
"The Obama administration has stopped short of calling the events of the past week a coup because of the implications that would have for the $US1.3 billion in conditional aid that flows to the Egyptian armed forces each year." (Egypt remains an uneasy nation under guard, Jason Koutsoukis, Sydney Morning Herald, 6/7/13)
For USrael and its clients (including Australia), the replacement of Morsi by Mansour matters little so long as the treaty with Israel is preserved.
For them, Egypt is merely a life-support system for a treaty.
[*For a backgrounder on this issue, see my posts A Likud Peace (15/2/09) and That Peace Treaty... (9/2/11).]
Friday, July 5, 2013
The Selective Outrage of Paul Sheehan
Brown MUSLIM men... very, very bad:
"Western women appear to be a magnet for leering and Egypt is known to have a wider problem of sexual assaults." (Sexual repression a thorn in side of Egypt democracy, Paul Sheehan, Sydney Morning Herald, 4/7/13)
White CHRISTIAN men... no worries, mate:
"A person could visit Angkor, one of the world's greatest cultural destinations, and for less than $US100 purchase some or all of the following smorgasbord of experiences in a single day... One bar girl to provide a 'happy ending' ($US25)." (Fortress of solitude, Paul Sheehan, The Age, 20/11/10)*
[*See my 7/5/11 post Killer Letter.]
"Western women appear to be a magnet for leering and Egypt is known to have a wider problem of sexual assaults." (Sexual repression a thorn in side of Egypt democracy, Paul Sheehan, Sydney Morning Herald, 4/7/13)
White CHRISTIAN men... no worries, mate:
"A person could visit Angkor, one of the world's greatest cultural destinations, and for less than $US100 purchase some or all of the following smorgasbord of experiences in a single day... One bar girl to provide a 'happy ending' ($US25)." (Fortress of solitude, Paul Sheehan, The Age, 20/11/10)*
[*See my 7/5/11 post Killer Letter.]
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)