CrossTalk on BDS: Sanctioning Israel (ft. Gilad Atzmon)

US Envoys from Hell

The choice of US ambassadors to Central Asia and the Middle East gives one pause for thought, says Eric Walberg

  

The 711 coalition deaths in Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan last year made 2010 the deadliest one for foreign troops since the US invasion in 2001, continuing the upward trend since 2003. 2011 promises to be even more deadly, and already includes the most spectacular event in this gruesome body count, when insurgents shot down a helicopter in eastern Afghanistan, killing 30 Americans.

Civilian deaths -- about 5-10 times higher -- have followed the same relentless climb, as have purported Taliban deaths which are about 10-20 times higher than the occupiers’ deaths. Deaths of all kinds in Pakistan have sharply increased in the last few years as well, with United States President Barack Obama's policy of using drones to fight US wars around the world.

US Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Ambassador Marc Grossman is now touring Central Asia to discuss his "New Silk Road" vision for the South and Central Asian region's economic future, the US State Department reports. He is visiting Dushanbe, Bishkek, Astana, Tashkent, Ashgabat, Abu Dhabi, Doha, Ankara, Kabul, Beijing, New Delhi and Islamabad during his grand tour of Eurasia. Grossman will return to Eurasia in November for the Istanbul conference on Afghanistan and in December for the Bonn conference where he hopes to build support for a “stable, secure, and prosperous Afghanistan in a stable, secure, and prosperous region". He is clearly very busy shaping a new order in AfPak, though hardly a silky one.

Grossman is a cypher. He has a long and shady career as a diplomat and corporate honcho. Most notoriously, he met with Pakistan's ISI intelligence agency head Mahmud Ahmed on 4 September 2001, shortly before the 11 September 2001 attacks, in his capacity as under secretary of state for political affairs, the department's third-ranking official. Ahmed was later dismissed from his post after it was discovered he had sent Mohamed Atta $100,000 at about the time he met with Grossman. The US government has not attempted to prosecute Ahmed, and the 9/11 Commission stated that the question of who financed the terrorist attacks was "of little practical significance".

Grossman was, in contrast, promoted and promoted by the State Department. In 2004, he was awarded the Foreign Service's highest rank -- Career Ambassador -- by president George W Bush. He received the Secretary of State Distinguished Service Award the following year, and took early retirement at the age of 54 to become vice chairman of The Cohen Group. This is a Washington DC firm founded by US secretary of defense William Cohen in 2001 to provide "global business consulting services and advice on tactical and strategic opportunities" to help multinational clients expand overseas, with offices in Beijing and Tianjin, People's Republic of China.

The Cohen Group is filled with ex-members of the White House, State Department, Defense Department, and Congress, including ex-generals, an ex-deputy secretary of Homeland Security – even an ex-secretary-general of NATO. Its publications in 2009 include "Smart Power is Soft Power", "The World Depends on US-China Cooperation", and "No time to cut missile defense".

In 2007, Grossman was subpoenaed in a case involving AIPAC and the transfer of sensitive information to Israel, along with Richard Holbrooke, who he replaced as special envoy to Afghanistan in February. Note that both Holbrooke and Grossman were/are Jewish Americans presiding over American war and occupation in Muslim nations.

But then Jeffrey Feltman is currently the assistant secretary of state for near eastern affairs and US hitman in Libya, while Gerald Feierstein is ambassador to Yemen as the US drops bomb after bomb on unsuspecting civilians there and just last week assassinated American citizen Anwar Al-Awlaki. While appointing Jewish ambassadors to Israel – the latest being Daniel Shapiro – is understandable, though hardly astute (Shapiro is a bosom buddy of Netanyahu), is the policy of putting them in such sensitive positions in the Muslim world, where the US is killing thousands of natives, really such a good idea? Is Washington fooling anyone, or is it sending a less-than-subtle message with these envoys?

That Afghanistan, Pakistan, and now Yemen and Libya have witnessed horrible scenes of death and destruction hardly goes unnoticed. Nor should Grossman take the smiles on his jaunts across Eurasia at face value. Certainly if we are referring to the face of the common people in these countries, as opposed to a paid-for neocolonial elite who are employed by Washington to carry out its orders.

But perhaps these moves in Washington's games are intended to convey a message to the Arab world. Just as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's 29 standing ovations during the special joint session of Congress and the Senate in Washington in May are part of a clearly orchestrated scenario. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was not invited to address such an august gathering last month in New York. In fact, his modest bid for observer status at the UN will be vetoed by Obama.

The message can only be that Israel and its supporters in the US thoroughly control US policy in the Middle East and Central Asia, from Morocco to Afghanistan. And, given such corporate-government spinoffs as The Cohen Group, this hegemony extends all the way to China. That despite any apparent Sino-American rivalry, China too will be incorporated into America-Israel Inc, given enough "smart power" wielded by the likes of Grossman in both their government and corporate capacities -- wielded baldly at one and the same time in Grossman's case, as both US special representative and corporate vice chairman.

Whether any of these "diplomats" were present for Netanyahu's address to Congress and the Senate is a moot point, but we can be sure that they would have joined in the 29 standing ovations. And we can be sure that the policies they are following, including Grossman's meeting with Pakistan's ISI head on the eve of 9/11, his subsequent tete-a-tetes with AIPAC spies, and his recent discussions with presidents and/or princes of at least a dozen Silk Road nations, will have Israel's best interests at heart every bit as much as what they conceive of to be America's.

Former president Clinton's counsel Abner Mikvner was not joking when he claimed back in 2008 that "Barack Obama is the first Jewish President." Obama's complete surrender to the Israel Lobby as his first term winds up has been attributed to the need to court the Jewish vote as he gears up to campaign for a second term. But maybe it's just inevitable, given the lobby's complete control of American politics as witnessed by the 29 standing ovations.

Back when Obama was still a free man, he attended Trinity United Church of Christ where the pastor was Jeremiah Wright. There can be no question that Obama admired and respected Wright; he even adapted Wright's eloquent "audacity to hope" for the title of his own autobiography. Wright said recently: “President Obama was selected before he was elected, and he is accountable to those who selected him. I’ll never forget one of the most powerful things he said to me in my home in April 2008. He said, ‘You know what your problem is? You have to tell the truth.’ I said, ‘That’s a good problem.'"

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Eric Walberg writes for Al-Ahram Weekly http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/ You can reach him at http://ericwalberg.com/ His Postmodern Imperialism: Geopolitics and the Great Games is available at http://claritypress.com/Walberg.html

Islam and Europe: An equal and opposite reaction

So goes one of the fundamental laws of physics. In the face of recent “actions” in the West -- economic crisis and rampant Islamophobia, there is an inexorable “reaction”, as the eternal values of Islam continue to manifest themselves, notes Eric Walberg 

 

Ramadan exemplifies the powerful spiritual calling of Islam. Dry fasting is more a test of the spirit, the will, proof of devotion, than just some health gimmick. And it is precisely this cultivation of mass “mind over matter” that frustrates Western secularists, so used to indulging every consumer fetish on a whim. Why are Muslims so stubborn in nurturing ancient beliefs and rituals when they fly in the face of modern capitalist society? Secular critics dismiss Islam as a harmful, even dangerous anachronism. Why disrupt one’s busy day five times to pray, slow down the whole economic order for an entire month every year, ban alcohol and interest -- the bedrock of Western society?

Yet the now rich and self-satisfied secular West, after centuries of conquest and imposition of its colonial and now neocolonial order, has found itself at a nightmarish deadend. Wars, riots, drug addiction, corruption, famine, ecological Armageddon ... There is little to cheer for and no coherent explanation for the impasse and the way forward. So the demand that the Muslim world follow in Western footsteps rings hollow.

For non-believers, there are social laws that can help to understand Islam’s continued relevance. One is Mayer Rothschild’s dictum: “Give me control of a nation’s money and I care not who makes its laws.” The other is Carl Clausewitz’s “War is the continuation of policy by other means.” Together, they point to the underlying economic and political problems which have led to the current crisis. In a nutshell, the dominance of banks (as opposed to governments representing the popular will) in controlling economic affairs has created a world where politics serves their particular needs (interest and profit), and the politics which promotes the interests of banks is -- just look around -- war and speculation (read: pillage and theft).

This is the “logic” underlying modern Western society, especially in the past three decades, with the alternative to capitalism, the Soviet Union, now dismantled, discredited, and more or less absorbed into the Western economic order. This triumph over the “enemy” left the field open to the Rothschild-Clausewitz mechanism. Electoral democracy is vaunted, but is a threadbare facade, for while the popular will consistently rejects war and banker hegemony, no political party is able to get elected to represent this popular will.

Believers need no explanation for the why and how of Islam and the devilish deadend the West now faces. Islam advocates a social order where there are no one-sided usurers using their monopoly on money to control economics and politics, a social order where peace (Islam) is the highest attainment of society, the goal of all “policy”, to which all should submit. If presented with the choice between the current chaos and the true Islamic alternative, there is little doubt that the Islamic alternative would be the overwhelming choice of the common people, both in Europe and America, despite the fact that Muslims represent only 2-8 per cent of the population in the West.

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Of course, this social order is the ideal. The history of Islam witnessed periods of benign and far-from-benign rule. It began with military victories and the spreading of the Caliphate from Atlantic to Pacific. The majority of conquered peoples decided to adopt this powerful religion, converting from polytheism, Buddhism, Christianity and Judaism, though, contrary to Western prejudice, not “by the sword”. Throughout the various Islamic political orders, Christians, Jews and others continued to profess their faiths, enjoying a peaceful coexistence with Muslims. There was no period of imperial conquest and genocide equivalent to the Western imperial order from the fifteenth century to today.

The westward march of Islam was stopped in Spain and on the fringes of Byzantium by Emperor Charlemagne in the ninth century. The Iberian peninsula -- Al-Andalus -- was the pearl of Islamic civilisation from 711 to 1492, as a province of the Umayyad Caliphate, and later the Caliphate of Cordoba and the Emirate of Granada.

Islamophobes portray Europe today as in danger of a new Muslim conquest, politicians and mass media egging on the likes of Norway’s Anders Breivik, who calls for the ethnic cleansing of all Muslims from Europe, much like Christian conquerors expelled Muslims and Jews following the reconquest of Spain in the fifteenth century. But consider for a moment the legacy of Moorish Spain. This period saw Muslims, Jews and Christians living in harmony, creating a prosperous, peaceful society, a highpoint in Spain’s history. Under the Caliphate of Cordoba, Al-Andalus became a beacon of learning, and the city of Cordoba became one of the leading cultural and economic centres in both the Mediterranean basin and the Islamic world.

As part of the Alliance of Civilisations, Spain is now rediscovering this Golden Age before the Christian re-conquest of Spain, which saw the torture, murder, forced conversion and expulsion of Muslims and Jews, and the genocide of American natives following the “discovery” of the American continent by Christopher Columbus. While Al-Andalus lasted eight centuries, the post-Islamic period of Spain has lasted only six centuries, and suffers poorly in comparison to the Islamic Golden Age that preceded it.

This was acknowledged by Spain’s current leader, Socialist Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, when he co-sponsored the Alliance of Civilisations along with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in 2005, as a way to “bridge the divide” between the West and Islam, through projects in youth, education, media, and migration. Forums have been held in Madrid (2008), Istanbul (2009) and Rio de Janiero (2010).

Given the current tyranny of money that characterised Western civilisation, it is not surprising that the Zapatero/ Erdogan attempt at bringing peace and understanding among the founding faiths of Spain and the Middle East is greeted with sneers and resentment by Israel and its supporters in the West. Israel-firsters such as Soeren Kern twist the positive moves to bring East and West together as a cover for “Muslim countries in the Persian Gulf and North Africa funnelling large sums of money to radical Islamic groups in towns and cities across Spain”.

But there is a more enduring dialectic at work in Europe. Despite the Israel lobby’s energetic efforts to blacken Islam, the wave of revulsion against Israeli apartheid continues to grow throughout Europe, but especially in Spain. Ilan Pappe describes how all Israeli ambassadors to Europe are more than glad to end their terms, complaining about their inability to speak in campuses and whining about the overall hostile atmosphere in Europe these days. The Israeli ambassador to Spain, Raphael Schutz, just finished his term in Madrid, and in an op-ed in Haaretz’s Hebrew edition he summarised what he termed as a very dismal stay, charging that he was the victim of local and ancient anti-Semitism, comparing the situation to the Inquisition of five centuries ago.

In “Why the Spanish hate us”, Schutz states that the people of Spain are anti-Israeli because subconsciously they are anti-Semitic and still approve of the Inquisition. He ignores the fact that the Muslims were the main victims of the Inquisition, that Jews fought and suffered side by side with their Muslim allies as the Christian invaders flood into Spain. Claiming that Spaniards who criticise Israel are racist and motivated by 500-year-old Christian bigotry rather than by Israeli’s criminal policies is just a feeble attempt at hasbara (public diplomacy) by desperate Israeli diplomats who have long ago lost the moral battle in Europe.

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The Kerns and Schutzes are supported by Spain’s real latterday Inquisition, the National Intelligence Center (CNI), which published a report in July, warning of tens of millions of dollars coming to Spain from Kuwait, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia to support Muslims, and calling for close monitoring of these funds. The CNI’s report hinted that the money would be used to promote Islamic courts, remove girls from schools, and encourage forced marriages. The Spanish government’s knee-jerk response was to call for all donations from the Gulf Arab states to be channelled through a government-controlled “Islamic Commission of Spain”.

The CNI pointed to the Kuwaiti government’s funding of the construction of mosques in Catalonia, from which Islamic preachers are supposedly “spreading a religious interpretation that opposes the integration of Muslims into Spanish society and promotes the separation and hate towards non-Muslim groups.” Qatari donations are made through the Islamic League for Dialogue and Coexistence in Spain, a group the CNI says is “linked to the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria”.

While the CNI talks only of the need to monitor funds, such as Kern argue that this is all part of a conspiracy by Muslim countries to take back Spain. He points to “the UAE, together with Libya [sic] and Morocco”, which paid for the construction of the Great Mosque of Granada. Says Abdel Haqq Salaberria, a spokesman for the mosque: “It will act as a focal point for the Islamic revival in Europe. It is a symbol of a return to Islam among the Spanish people and among indigenous Europeans.” Worse yet for Islamophobes, Muslims in Cordoba are demanding that the Spanish government allow them to worship in the main cathedral, which was originally the Great Mosque of Al-Andalus and is now a World Heritage Site.

Pointing to Saudi financing of the construction of Islamic Cultural Centres and mosques in Madrid and elsewhere, Kern conjures up the Saudi Wahhabi bugaboo, arguing that most Muslim immigrants in Spain are poor, and their low standard of living and low level of education make them susceptible to Saudi propaganda, ignoring the fact that Saudi Arabia is a close ally of the US, that Wahhabism is the quietist brand of Islam, and the only real way to improve the security situation is to raise the standard of living and level of education of the poor.

Despite such cries of “Wolf!”, attempts to reintegrate Islam into the fabric of Spanish culture are proceeding. Morocco recently co-sponsored a seminar in Barcelona titled “Muslims and European Values” explaining that the construction of big mosques would be “a useful formula” to fight Islamic fundamentalism in Spain. According to Noureddine Ziani, a Barcelona-based Moroccan imam: “It is easier to disseminate fundamentalist ideas in small mosques set up in garages, than in large mosques that are open to everyone.” Using this logic, Spain should welcome more Libyan funding of Great Mosques, rather than participate in NATO’s efforts to destroy the Libyan state and create real grounds for terrorism.

Ziani also said that Islamic values are compatible with European values and that the so-called Western “Judeo-Christian” civilisation is really an “Islamo-Christian” one. The cultural construct “Judeo-Christian heritage” entered the English language only in the 1940s as a reaction to Nazism, and is used by the imperial elite in its “clash of civilizations” targeting Islam. A concept useful to a largely Christian empire where Jewish elites play a powerful role, but one which is rejected by serious scholars, both Christian and Jewish. Talmudic scholar Jacob Neusner calls it a “secular myth favoured by people who are not really believers themselves”. Not only Ziani but American scholars such as Richard Bulliet argue for the use of “Islamo-Christian” to characterise Western civilisation.

Spain suffered several terrorist bombings in the wake of 9/11, notably the 2004 11-M bombings in Madrid, but no evidence was ever presented to suggest Al-Qaeda or Muslims were the perpetrators. Many observers point to Basque and other independence movements as the culprits, or even the Spanish police themselves as part of a false-flag operation. The reality of Spain today is not the existence of any external threat from Islam, but on the contrary, domestic unrest due to the economic crisis and political paralysis.

This gloomy situation prompted concerned young people to boycott Spain’s elections in May and -- ironically -- emulate their largely Muslim Arab Spring heroes by constructing tent cities in protest at the lack of meaningful democracy. Just as Egyptian revolutionaries borrowed techniques from their Western counterparts to throw off their taskmasters, so Spaniards are emulating them in turn -- a true Alliance of Civilisations. European, US and Canadian youth are also impressed by the endurance, the resolution of Palestinians in the face of Israel and its supporters, a 21st-century Judeo-Christian Inquisition persecuting Muslims, not only in Palestine, but in so-called Eurabia and North America.

The Islamophobes turn the truth on its head, attacking the Alliance of Civilisations as a “one-way bridge” undermining European society. But the West’s relations with the Muslim world show just the opposite -- the West has invaded and continues to try to shape the Muslim world to meet capitalism’s requirements. That Muslims stubbornly hold to their beliefs and traditions is an important contribution to the search for a way forward for a crisis-ridden world.

Britain’s riots prove that Muslims are a boon to European society, being inherently peaceful and law-abiding. Muslims from the East London Mosque and the Islamic Forum Europe played an important role in helping to fight the looting and preserve public safety. Three Muslims died in Birmingham defending shops from looters, though in the media they were merely called Asians. “When accused of terrorism we are Muslims, when killed by looters, we become Asian,” a Muslim student told Al-Jazeerah bitterly.

Rather than the “clash of civilisations” advocated by Islamophobes, those who seek social and economic justice can find inspiration in the eternal truths of Islam, looking to Europe’s own Islamo-Christian heritage -- past and present -- to discover an alliance of civilisations that rejects war, theft, moral degeneration and racism. This is the lesson that Ramadan offers to the West today.

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Eric Walberg writes for Al-Ahram Weekly http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/ You can reach him at http://ericwalberg.com/ Walberg's Postmodern Imperialism is available at http://claritypress.com/Walberg.html

Israel and the Flotillas: Clever madman

There is much angst among people of conscience over the fate of Freedom Flotilla II, but by effectively scuttling it, Israel is really just hammering more nails in its own coffin, says Eric Walberg

The efforts by Israel to prevent Freedom Flotilla II from leaving Greece have been largely successful. Of the original 10 ships, only the French ship Al-Karama (dignity) with 10 activists including French politicians, which sailed from the French Corsica two weeks ago, and the sabotaged-and-repaired Juliano (named after Juliano Meir Khamis, the murdered Israeli director of Jenin’s Freedom Theatre), were able to elude the Greek coastguard as of early this week.

Then Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman telephoned Sierra Leone's President Ernest Bai Koroma and persuaded him to withdraw his country's flag from the Swedish Juliano, giving the Greek coast guard the opportunity to block the ship in Heraklion. Though Al-Karama was apprehended by the Greeks while refueling at sea near Crete, it managed to give them the slip and is still chugging along, the lone survivor.

The Spanish Gernika (named after Picasso's 1937 mural against fascism) is still in port along with the remaining ships, though 20 Spaniards are occupying their embassy -- six of them on a hunger strike. Activists haven't given up hope that the Gernika, another French boat the Louise Michel, the Italian Stefano Chiarini, the Freedom for All and the Methimus II -- all sequestered or sabotaged -- will still prevail.

Israeli special operatives were able to dive in Greek and Turkish waters to sabotage some of the ships, including the Juliano and the Irish Saoirse (sabotaged in Gocek, Turkey). Both vessels had their propellers damaged -- if they had not discovered the damage, they could well have sunk at sea.

“Anonymous” (Israeli) complaints of unseaworthiness were used by Greek authorities to delay other ships. The Greeks, clearly acting on Israeli-US orders arrested the captain of the American ship, and then did the same to his crew members who went on a hunger strike outside the US embassy in Athens on 4 July, the anniversary of American independence.

The Canadian ship Tahrir had actually departed after its captain decided he was endangering the crew by remaining in the port, with Israeli frogmen liable to conduct further acts of sabotage. Spokesman Dylan Kenner explained that the Greek coast guard illegally boarded the ship and towed it back to port. When the passengers refused to identify the captain of the ship, all 50 of them were taken into custody.

The Tahrir finally threw in the towel when Greek authorities suddenly demanded new papers, knowing organisers would not be able to produce them on short notice. Ditto the US Audacity of Hope.

The Israeli government has thus extended its illegal blockade of Gaza to Greek ports, Kenner argued. Greece offered to ferry the aid to Gaza in cooperation with the UN, an offer the activists turned down as “insufficient”, since their mission was also about the rights of the Palestinian people and not just about aid.

The response from Israel was delight at the Greek actions. In Jerusalem, Israeli President Shimon Peres told Greek President Karolos Papoulias, “I want to thank you for following the instructions of the United Nations secretary-general and stopping the Gaza flotilla… Israel always has its hand stretched out in peace.” Greece and Israel are currently carrying out joint military manoeuvres, the sixth in the past year.

The response of the US Congress was to vote 407–6 to suspend funds to the Palestinian Authority should it pursue a unilateral declaration of statehood at the UN in September. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said, “We stand by Israel as our most valued ally.”

In related news, another ship, the Spirit of Rachel Corrie from Malaysia, after seven weeks trying to break the siege, was finally allowed to unload its 32 tons of PVC pipes at the El-Arish port in Egypt, thanks to the direct intervention of Egyptian Prime Minister Essam Sharaf, who assured activists that the pipes would reach Gaza. Their success coincided with the visit to Egypt of former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad, who is a staunch friend of Palestine. Malaysia does not recognise Israel and is one of the few countries with a principled stand against Israeli atrocities.

As the Flotillers licked their wounds, hundreds of Western activists attempted to enter Israel en masse 8 July in a “Flytilla” to show solidarity with Palestinians in the West Bank. Israeli “intelligence” was prepared however, providing European airports with no-fly-lists of known peaceniks, preventing 350 from boarding their flights, in violation (what else is new?) of international law. More than 500 still made it to Ben-Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv. Of them, 124 were arrested, 40 are now on a hunger strike after being denied access to lawyers and medical treatment, and 69 have already been deported.

As always, Israel achieves its narrow, tactical victories at the expense of its long term strategy of achieving respect as a legitimate nation; instead, isolating itself further as a rogue nation with no concern for human rights or the welfare of others, despised by most of the world. In a 2010 European opinion poll 60 per cent saw Israel as the greatest threat to world peace (74 per cent in the Netherlands).

It extends its criminal siege of Gaza and occupation of the West Bank to Greek ports and European airports. It acts to encourage anti-Jewish sentiment where there is none, as it insists it speaks on behalf of the world’s Jews, its very raison d’etre being to act as a “safe haven” for them. The over-reaction by Israel to these peaceful protests, according to Gilad Atzmon, proves once again what Israel is all about: “the Jewish State is a closed society driven by ‘Pre-Traumatic Stress Disorder’ fuelled by vivid imaginary fantasies of destruction.”

The Flotilla, composed of well-meaning, perhaps naive peaceniks, was never intended to best the world’s most dangerous and highly militarised society. With virtually all the world’s governments in thrall to Israel, its sole purpose was first, to show Palestinians that they have the world’s people behind them and to encourage them to keep up their heroic resistance, and second, to highlight just how reprehensible Israel is as a state, how unprincipled and untrustworthy as a partner.

By its actions, the Israeli government and its cheerleaders have unwittingly done their part in this pro-Palestinian public relations campaign. Whatever the fate of the Flotilla, it has acted as further fuel to the boycott, divest and sanctions (BDS) campaign and the struggle to delegitimise Israel, or rather to assist Israel in its self-inflicted process of delegitimisation as an apartheid state.

Appropriately, this week, the seventh anniversary of the International Court of Justice ruling against the separation wall, the Free Gaza Movement (FGM) and the Palestinian Boycott National Committee called for an immediate and comprehensive military embargo on Israel. “The international community has a legal and moral responsibility to end their complicity with Israel’s unlawful actions,” declared the FGM. This is the only way to pressure Israel to abide by international law, to stop attacking civilian ships in international waters and bombing civilians with white phosphorous.

Israeli politicians are smirking at their ability to stymie the Freedom Flotilla II. But, writes blogger Saker, this is a Pyrrhic victory for the Israeli ship of state. They are like those partying on the deck of the Titanic, who were oblivious to the fact that, thanks to their hubris, their ship would soon rest at the bottom of the ocean.

Russia, Egypt, Libya: A kind-of-silver lining

by Eric Walberg:

Russia has always looked on at events in the Middle East from afar, shut out of the action, and remains an onlooker today, absorbed by its own problems. Eric Walberg looks at the implications for Russia of the revolutions and no-so-revolutions sweeping the Middle East

Russian politics is in turmoil as a result of the uprisings in the Arab world, in particular the Egyptian revolution. Those fed up with an increasingly autocratic political system hope that Russian citizens will be energised, while those who came out on top following the collapse of the Soviet Union are quick to dismiss any implications for the Russian political scene.

The official Russian reluctance to embrace the winds of change in the Middle East contrasts with the reaction of the rest of the world and speaks volumes about the real state of Russian politics. While the invasion of Libya revived the spectre of British/ French/ Italian/ US imperialism on Africa’s north coast – hardly a welcome development for Russia – the implications of the Egyptian tidal wave now sweeping away corrupt, authoritarian politicians and their business cronies, without any need for French Exocet missiles and US-Israeli drones, is even more disturbing for the Kremlin, and it has nothing to do with Chechnya or Dagestan, where violence could hardly get worse as a result of a peaceful mass revolution like Egypt’s.

The lack of enthusiasm was a gut reaction by the leadership and has a very good cause, for despite the very different cultures and histories, ordinary Russians face much the same situation as did Egyptians prior to 25 January. Post-Soviet Russian politics has not allowed the real voice of Russians to be heard, as starkly demonstrated in 1993, when Yeltsin violently disbanded the parliament, and then in 1996, when the communist Gennadi Ziuganov won the presidential election, but was kept from office by the machinations of the Yeltsin clique and its Western backers.

Since then, Machiavellian “political technologists” have served up a dish which Ivan Krastev dubbed “sovereign democracy”, a combination of “directed democracy and nationalism”, an antidote to the dangerous combination of populist pressure from below and international pressure from above that destroyed the post-Communist Ukrainian, Georgian and Kyrgyz regimes in so-called colour revolutions.

The political elite managed to avoid the fate of those regimes and stabilise the rule of the Putin-Medvedev duumvirate, but in the process, returned Russia to the undemocracy of the Soviet period, replacing the communists’ social welfare and anti-imperialist foreign policies with a dash of pluralism. The Arab spring is no phoney colour revolution, and what is happening in Egypt is a frightening affair for the Russian elite, both supporters of the more nationalist Putin and those of the more Europhile Medvedev. Though Putin scandalously contradicted his president by criticising the Western invasion of Libya as a “Crusade”, few in Russia take this spat seriously.

Their rivalry may add some spice to Russian politics, but the main ingredients are unchanged. Medvedev strives to carry out the Westernisers’ programme, while Putin plays a rearguard defence, at times praising the Soviet legacy and condemning Western threats and invasions. Indeed, as Israel Shamir notes, “only Putin stands between the people’s anger and the fat cats of Moscow. Russians know that the oligarchs and top Kremlin figures are perfectly integrated into the Western capitalist scheme: they keep their money in Bahamas, they send their children to Oxford, they own houses on the Riviera and Hampstead, they own shares in the transnational companies. And together with their Western chums, they fleece Russians.”

The Medvedev-Putin duo are a packaged deal – if one goes, the whole post-Soviet set-up totters. The elites they jointly represent have good cause to fear the example that Egyptian revolutionaries have set. However, there is one important plus for the would-be Russian Westernisers in the Kremlin deriving from the unrest sweeping the Arab world. Whereas until a few months ago, NATO visits to Ukraine and Georgia were continuing to embarrass the proponents of the US-Russian “restart button”, the noise of bombs exploding in Libya and tear gas in Yemen and Bahrain is drowning out the calls for NATO’s expansion eastward. Nikolas Gvosdev explains that “both Russia and Poland sense the operation [in Libya] may prove to be a turning point in the future direction of the North Atlantic alliance.”

No longer is NATO pushing eastward, threatening a now compliant Russia, concerned with maintaining its hegemony in its “near abroad”, but posing no threat to Western Europe.

Thus the refusal of Russian UN Ambassador Vladimir Chamov to veto UNSC Resolution 1973, clearly a ploy to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi using pious UN platitudes like “Responsibility to Protect”. Russia last used its precious UN veto in 2008 to prevent sanctions against Zimbabwe, and more famously in 1999 to prevent a UN bombing of Serbia. The Libyan resolution was just as cynical as either of these, but elicited only an abstention. (China merely followed suit so as not to be the odd-man-out.)

The Russian people are strongly against the operation; it is being called Kosovo-2 in Moscow. For them, “a Western intervention is a Western intervention, one of many they were on the receiving end of,” writes Shamir.

The other puzzle here is the refusal of Poland and Germany to jump on the Libyan bandwagon. The answer lies in the implications of this new NATO project for Europe and the central role French President Nicolas Napoleon (excuse me, Sarkozy) is playing in it. If Russia approves NATO’s shift from eastward to southward and moves closer to the West, Poland loses its importance as a frontline state “keeping the Russians at bay”. So it is unhappy with developments. As for Germany, unlike France, it has been anxious to expand economically eastward, to incorporate Russia into a broader Eurasian association where it will call the shots. It was suspicious of Sarkozy’s Mediterranean Union, patched together by Sarkozy in 2008, from the start and, like Poland, is against the NATO intervention in Libya.

The Mediterranean Union brings together all the Mediterranean countries and the EU, including Israel, sans Libya. At the same time, NATO has been pursuing the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative (Turkey and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)), and the GCC+4 (+ Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, US). The latter was heralded in 2007 as the “NATO of the Middle East”, the successor to the Middle East Defense Organisation (MEDO) set up in the early 1950s to include Egypt, Iraq, Turkey and others.

This shift makes sense for both Europe and the US. Afghanistan is a lost cause and will have to be abandoned soon. Much more rational to pour money and effort into the Mediterranean region, integrate Israel and (hopefully) pull in Iraq as this new MEDO gains traction. The invasion of Libya is just the thing to provide an ailing NATO with a new lease on life. AFRICOM, the latest arm of the US military command structure, will be more than glad to help out. The US is already mooting the possibility of sending ground troops to support its Libyan rebel allies, and with stick-in-the-mud Gaddafi gone – who knows? – maybe AFRICOM will find a new home in Tripoli. It is still stuck in Germany, as no other African government has dared to offer it residence.

From the French point of view, this shift “from an East-West divide and toward a North-South bridge”, as Gvozdev calls it, will kill no less than three birds with one stone: it gets rid of Gaddafi, it does not threaten European rapprochement with Russia, and it puts France back in the lead within the EU. Ruffling German and Polish feathers is neither here nor there for le général.

The US, like Russia was not keen with the development of events in the Arab world (particularly in strategic Egypt), as the pre-January 2011 order in the Middle East more or less suited the US fine. Much easier to deal with dictators who endure for decades and have sons eager to take their place. What will happen in Egypt now, or Libya for that matter, is far from clear, but it must make the best of the situation.

Like the Arab world, and in particular, Egypt, Russia is ripe for change. And the same recipe for changing the sorry state of things applies in both: a coalition of the left and the other opposition forces (in Russia, primarily the nationalists, in Egypt – the Islamists). Counter-revolutionary strategy is also identical: more managed democracy, dividing the forces of revolution relying on slick campaigns by political technologists, supplemented by undercover tricks – possibly “terrorist” acts, planted news items, stock exchange and currency instability, oil shocks and the like.

Egyptian revolutionaries surely wish like-minded Russians well. But as politicians in Moscow (not to mention Paris) watch NATO flounder in Afghanistan and now in Libya, and try out policies which suit their geopolitical needs regardless of their merit, it should be remembered that MEDO fell apart when Egypt had a revolution in 1952. It is not always possible to shape genuine revolutions to suit the needs of the old order and its foreign friends.

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Eric Walberg writes for Al-Ahram Weekly http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/ You can reach him at http://ericwalberg.com

US-Egypt: ‘Why?’

Eric Walberg reflects on the reasons for the very different reactions to Egypt’s revolution among North Americans

Western media always welcomes the overthrow of a dictator -- great headline news -- but this instance was greeted with less than euphoria by Western -- especially American -- leaders, who tried to soft-peddle it much as did official Egyptian media till the leader fled the palace. Egypt's president Hosni Mubarak was a generously paid ally for the US in its Middle East policy of protecting Israel, and the hesitancy of the Western -- especially US -- governments in supporting fully what should have been a poster-child of much-touted US ideals was both frustrating and highly instructive.

Canadian government support for Mubarak was even more staunch until vice-president Omar Suleiman’s 20 second resignation speech 11 February, clearly written with a metaphorical gun to one or both of their heads. This craven loyalty to an autocrat reviled by his people was the US-Israeli preferred solution. Much better to cool the passionate revolutionaries, allow the system, so beneficial to Israel, to adjust and survive.

But perhaps more important, much better to continue Egypt’s state-of-emergency laws that allow the regime to keep Israel critics and devout Muslims under raps, and just as important, allow the US to “render” undesirable Muslims there to be tortured. Imagine if the records of these renditions over the past decade by the US (and Canada) to Egypt were to come to light, falling into the hands of the revolutionaries, much like Britain’s secret treaties in WWI fell into the Bolsheviks’ hands?

“They’re not going to put the toothpaste back in the tube,” quipped Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper glumly. He could well be articulating -- in his own tasteless way -- the sentiments of the Egyptian military establishment, which had no use for a Mubarak dynasty and sided with the rebels, though at a considerable cost. Those now in power, nominally headed by Minister of Defence and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces Mohammed Tantawi, must push determined demonstrators out of Tahrir Square, get people back to work, shut down further strikes, and keep their US military advisers (not to mention the US president himself) assured that the centrepiece of Egyptian foreign policy remains in place. Truly a messy task.

It is hard to believe now that just a few weeks ago, Mubarak was invincible, his visage gracing at least one page in every newspaper every day, meeting with some Western leader, posing with Israeli notables, confident that he was in control of his desert ship-of-state. After the initial euphoria, and as evidence of his misrule and the perilous state that he left Egypt in pours out of newly liberated media, people are overwhelmed, irritable and depressed. People have undergone a wrenching shift in their thinking in the past three weeks.

Iranian leaders note the eerie coincidence with their own revolution of 11 February 1979 overthrowing the shah (1941-79). A national holiday, more than half the population of Iran was out on the streets celebrating along with Egyptians when Mubarak finally resigned last Friday evening. US commentators prefer to compare the revolution to the overthrow of Philippines president Ferdinand Marcos (1965-87) and Indonesian president Suharto (1968-98). They even suggest it could lead to another Iranian revolution.

Despite the many differences, Iran and Indonesia are the closest parallels: an anti-colonial revolt against a repressive pseudo-Muslim autocrat whose corruption and nepotism undid him. Those revolts triumphed when the army and police gave up supporting the US-backed leader, much as Egypt’s security apparatus did. The long repressed Muslim Brotherhood is the Sunni equivalent of the Iranian clerics. Even if the US can steer Egypt into the secular Indonesian model, it will still have to come to terms with the fact that Indonesia does not recognise Israel, that any future Egyptian government will almost surely renegotiate the 1979 peace agreement with Israel.

It seems that Egypt’s suffering and oppression are something alien to Western experience. But this is far from the truth. As the fervour spread like wildfire during the first few weeks, I recalled how the leftist community in Toronto is just as self-righteous and eager for change, how neoliberalism has left Canadian society with yawning income disparities not much different than those of Egypt. The most obvious difference being that the general standard of living in Canada is higher and the middle class (still) more numerous. But the very idea of such a spectacular event as happened here to address issues of social justice is impossible to imagine there or in the US.

It struck me that the most stark and instructive parallel is not with Indonesia or Iran, but between pre-revolution Egypt and the current US, which, like Egypt, has reached the end of the same gruelling 30-year neoliberal road that Egypt did under Mubarak’s reign, jettisoning any pretense of a just society. The coincidences abound: both the US and Egypt began their ill-fated journeys in that very 1981, with the ascendancy of US president Ronald Reagan and the assassination of Egyptian president Anwar El-Sadat, though El-Sadat had actually pre-empted Reaganomics with his infitah, dismantling of much of Egypt’s socialism.

Each US presidency since then has either embraced or been pressured by the exigencies of capitalism and electoral democracy to enact greater and great tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, meanwhile cutting social services and increasing spending on so-called defence. Each "new" government has regularly flouted the consensus of the electorate on all major issues, from the environment, social services, jobs, to weapons production, invasions, drug laws and the Cubas and Irans which in defiance dare to flout the empire.

Income disparity is arguably the strongest impulse to revolt. As measured by the Gini coefficient (0 is perfect equality) Egypt stands in a far better light at .34 than the US .45 (Canada is .32).

So why did Egyptians succeed spectacularly where Americans -- in even greater need of a revolution -- fail spectacularly?

Egyptians seem to be much more politically astute than their American counterparts, more willing to admit that their leaders take bribes, lie, follow policies dictated by business or lobbies and which counter public opinion.

But the key to understanding why a revolution like Egypt's is impossible in the US is the fact that, unlike Egypt's army (composed mostly of conscripts), the US has a mercenary (excuse me, professional) army, which would have little compunction to fire on any group threatening the sanctity of the political establishment. Conscription is a vital brick in building a democratic society, an safeguard allowing the society to be dismantled if it turns into a jail or a brothel, a brick which has been lost to the US and its satellites. A brick that Egyptian protesters used to telling effect.

Senator John Kerry said that the Egyptian people “have made clear they will settle for nothing less than greater democracy and more economic opportunities”. So what are Egypt's prospects of creating a thriving democracy? They would be wise to listen to Kerry and to observe the US system, though not to copy it but on the contrary to learn from its sorry state.

Why would Americans expect a president to be fair and hear them when he must raise a billion dollars from corporations to outspend his equally compromised rival in elections? New York Times analyst Bob Herbert looked enviously at Egyptians’ longing for democracy, comparing the US political system to a “perversion of democracy”, bemoaning that at the very moment Egyptians are discovering it, “Americans are in the mind-bogglingly self-destructive process of letting a real democracy slip away.”

And yet Americans blissfully pledge their allegiance, weep on 4 July and during presidential inaugurations, despite the unassailable evidence of the injustices both domestically and abroad of the system they live under. Egyptians, though just as nationalistic, were able to see through the facade of their pseudo-democracy and rise up to overthrow the guilty parties. They are the heroes of all true democrats in the world. The few people particularly in North America who see through their own quite transparent political facade can only look on wistfully.

What became the anthem of the revolution — “Why?” by Mohamed Munir — was written, presciently, a month before the 25 January spark that burned away (let’s hope) much of the chaff accumulated during 30 years of neoliberal “reforms”. He cries out to his homeland like a spurned lover who vows to take his country back from the usurpers:

If love of you was my choice

My heart would long ago have changed you for another

But I vow I will continue to change your life for the better

Till you are content with me.

How different from the equivalent American song — Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the USA” — self-pitying and hopeless in this, the world’s sole superpower:

You end up like a dog that’s been beat too much

‘Till you spend half your life just covering up.

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Eric Walberg writes for Al-Ahram Weekly http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/ You can reach him at http://ericwalberg.com/

BDS 2010: More powerful than the sword

Boycott Divestment and Sanctions is a two-edged sword, bringing relief to starving Gazans, and starvation to the occupier, discovers Eric Walberg

It was two years ago today, 27 December, that Israel launched its invasion of Gaza, carrying out 22 days of murder and mayhem, killing 1400 and leaving 5400 civilians crippled for life. Since then it has continued to besiege the 1.5 million Gazans, causing hundreds more unnecessary deaths. Its actions were deemed war crimes by the UN Goldstone Report.

Israel remains unpunished, hiding behind the skirts of its US lobbyists, who put unremitting pressure on every single congressman, senator and the president to prevent any condemnation of its crimes.

But its attempt to cow the Palestinians have failed. What Israel has succeeding in doing is to confirm beyond a doubt, for millions around the world, its inhuman, racist agenda.

The past two years have witnessed an awakening of world citizens to the plight of the brave Gazans. There have been more than a dozen convoys and flotillas, including Free Gaza boats that broke the siege five times, the Gaza Freedom March, the Gaza Freedom Flotilla — people of all faiths and nationalities risking life and limb to bring Gazans emergency help.

The latest, the “Asia to Gaza Solidarity Caravan”, the first from south of the equator, represents 18 countries. It reached Turkey last week having started in India, and passing through Pakistan and Iran. It timed its peaceful “invasion” of Gaza to coincide with the anniversary of Israel’s day of infamy.

These efforts to bring relief to suffering Gazans are essential but far from enough. They can be conceived of the positive tactics in a peaceful war by the Palestinians and all people of good will against apartheid Israel. This war goes by the name Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS). The war aims are to penalise Israel both politically and economically to end the siege and make a just peace with the Palestinians.

Politically BDS has coaxed more and more governments to legitimise Palestine, even going as far as to delegitimise an apartheid Israel. Important steps include:

-Venezuela and Bolivia cutting diplomatic relations with Israel in 2009 after the invasion of Gaza, Nicaragua after the attack on the Freedom Flotilla in May 2010.
-Bolivia, Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay recognising a “free and independent” Palestine with 1967 borders in 2010, with Paraguay to follow suit in the spring.
-Norway and Britain upgrading their Palestinian Authority representative to consul, with the new year promising more European countries to follow suit.
-Edinburgh city council rejecting a bid by French company Veolia to take over public services due to its complicity with Israeli crimes.
-also in Scotland, Stirling city council approving a comprehensive boycott campaign against Israel’s “open aggression and disregard for international law.”
-Marrickville, Australia, a sister city to Bethlehem since 2007, recently voting to support a comprehensive BDS campaign.

Israel besieges Gaza. BDS calls on the world to “besiege the siege”, to starve Israel of its export and import markets and pressure it to make a just peace with its captives. There were many victories on this economic front in 2010 too. Examples include:

-Qatar cutting its trade relations with Israel.
-deals cancelled with Turkey, the UK, Egypt and Gulf States.
-a Turkish company demanding that Israeli companies sign a document condemning the Israeli massacre in Gaza to continue doing business. Israeli businessmen in Turkey now have to hide their identity.
-Japan’s MUJI abandoning plans to invest in Israel, facing immense pressure from citizens in Japan and South Korea.
- European Union guidelines requiring supermarkets to mark the origin of produce on labels to allow consumers to distinguish between Palestinian, Israeli and settlement produce.
-Dutch pension fund PFZW disposing of the Israeli companies in its portfolio. Major Swedish and Norwegian investment funds sold their shares in all Israeli companies involved in building settlements and the separation wall.
-the Chilean parliament’s decision to adopt a boycott of Israeli products made in settlements.
-the decision by companies such as Multilock to close their West Bank businesses because of human rights organisation pressure.

Dozens of BDS groups around the world, including in the US, are singing, dancing and otherwise demonstrating in front of and inside stores selling Israeli products, urging management and customers to join the boycott.

But the biggest impact on Israel, ironically, has come from the beleaguered Palestinians themselves. The Palestinian Authority (PA) has made it illegal for anything produced in settlements to be sold in Palestinian stores. The West Bank market is worth around $200 million a year to Israeli businesses, with some settlement factories selling up to 30 per cent of their output to the Palestinian market. Seventeen factories in Mishor Adumim, a large industrial estate between East Jerusalem and Jericho, closed as a direct result of the PA boycott.

As 22,000 Palestinians are employed by settlement businesses, the PA has established a $50 million fund to both discourage Palestinians from working in the settlements and help those who lose their jobs due to BDS successes.

While Israel’s economic media passes no judgment on Israel’s political and moral failings, BDS is forcing it to wake up. The Marker warned about the growing boycott of Israeli high-tech companies by European and US companies which find they cannot invest in Israel for moral reasons. Nehemia Strassler, Israel’s leading economic analyst, attacked Israeli Minister of Industry, Trade and Labor Eli Yishai, for calling on the military to “destroy one hundred homes in Gaza for every rocket that falls in Israel”.

“The operation in Gaza hurts the economy. The horror sights on television and the words of politicians in Europe and Turkey change the behavior of consumers, businessmen and potential investors. Many European consumers boycott Israeli products in practice. Intellectuals call for an economic war against us and to enforce an official and full consumer boycott.”

The world is changing before our eyes. Five years ago the anti-Israel movement was limited to the far left or Arabs and Muslims. Now the campaign is entering the mainstream as a principled red and green -- leftwing and Muslim -- alliance

The boycott is an especially effective weapon against Israel because Israel is a small country, dependent on exports and imports. BDS was the key to ending the apartheid regime in South Africa and is fuelling world citizens with energy to do the same to Israeli apartheid.

And it is all thanks to Israel’s Operation Cast Lead, which let the world watch Israel pound Gaza with bombs on live television. Israeli-American artist Theordore Bikel, a recent convert to BDS, points to the legendary Pablo Casals, who refused to play in fascist Spain, saying, “My cello is my weapon; I choose where I play, when I play, and before whom I play.” There are many weapons mightier than the sword.
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Eric Walberg writes for Al-Ahram Weekly http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/ You can reach him at http://ericwalberg.com/

Russia and NATO: ‘Not a piece of furniture’

Medvedev’s presence in Lisbon was more a show of Russia’s importance than of subservience to the Euro-Atlantic alliance, says Eric Walberg

The results of the NATO summit were as predictable as a Soviet Communist Party congress, with the word “peace” replaced by “war”. NATO’s embrace of the US agenda of missile defence, nuclear arms, and its new role as global policeman surprised no one. No word about the United Nations or peacekeeping. In deference to Russia, the only mention of eastern expansion was continued “partnerships” with former Soviet republics Ukraine and Georgia. Indonesia, Malaysia, Australia, New Zealand and Japan were also offered special status. The new Strategic Doctrine, replacing the more modest Euro-centric 1999 model, really just reaffirmed US control of the foreign policy of what Zbigniew Brzezinski called its “vassal states”.

There were a few ripples. France’s new defense minister, Alain Juppe, openly said the Afghan conflict was a “trap” for NATO and called for an exit strategy, unlike Head of the British Armed Forces Sir David Richards, who opined, “NATO now needs to plan for a 30 or 40 year role.” The Euro-spat continues over the continued presence of nuclear weapons in Europe, between France, which prides itself on its force de frappe, and Germany, which was denied any such private nuclear toys during the Cold War.

But they agreed to disagree and the summit was all smiles and photo ops, at least centre-stage. On the sidelines, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev told a warm United States President Obama Barack that he was ready to cooperate on missile defence but only in “a full-fledged strategic partnership between Russia and NATO”, and Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai told a frosty Obama that he should scale back military operations and night raids that inflict heavy civilian casualties.

Through NATO’s integration into the Pentagon’s world command structure, it can be said that now, officially, the US rules the world. NATO has its Istanbul Initiative, attempting to militarise the Mediterranean Dialogue and Gulf Cooperation Councils covering the entire Middle East, including Israel. Even in Africa, only Eritrea, Libya, Sudan and Zimbabwe do not (yet) have relations with USAFRICOM. But then, NATO’s two major “out of area” police roles -- Kosovo and Afghanistan -- are not encouraging signs, nor are the Pentagon’s efforts in Iraq. The bigger NATO gets, and the more far-flung the US military, the more unwieldy and expensive both become. How do Malaysian soldiers in Afghanistan converse with Albanians? As Muslims, they may know their prayers in Arabic, but only by rote. And can they be trusted to kill their Afghan brothers?

What Russian strategists really think of NATO’s “new” doctrine is difficult to tell. The professed preference for closer relations with the West by Atlantist Medvedev and the Russian elites he represents differ markedly from his predecessor Putin’s. Despite Medvedev’s assurances, his appearance at the NATO conference did little to dissipate the confusion about relations with NATO. His offer of a joint missile defence network is not the one that the US has in mind. He told the gathering that Russia won’t join NATO missile defence as “piece of furniture”. A senior Russian diplomat told Kommersant, “Yes, we will defend countries to the west of Russia. Equally, NATO must commit to the same responsibilities -- any missiles that fly against us over Europe, they must all be shot down by American or NATO forces.”

Despite Russia’s apparent weakness, it still casts the biggest shadow over the alliance. There are signs of meaningful cooperation in the Russia-NATO Council Action Plan as described by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. Russia's Black Sea Fleet is taking part in NATO’s antiterrorist Operation Active Endeavour in the Mediterranean Sea and fighting against piracy off the coast of Somalia. Rather than a will-o-the-wisp missile defence, he emphasised the joint radar system near completion along Russia’s western borders “to prevent seizures of aircraft by terrorists” and the ongoing assistance “during floods, fires and man-made disasters”.

But Lavrov said there are “international problems on which we do not see eye to eye”, that in any missile defence system there must be “no actions that may adversely affect the legitimate interests of each other”. He was more concerned about reducing conventional forces in Europe and “a systemic discussion about military restraint”. NATO “must be guided by the UN Charter, especially in regard to the possible use of force in international relation, and by international law”. Meaning, of course, that at present NATO policies adversely affect Russia, and NATO and the US are operating outside of international law.

Quite possibly more significant than the hot air emitted in Lisbon was the tete-a-tete between Medvedev, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Germany Chancellor Angela Merkel a month earlier on 18-19 October at their own mini-summit in Deauville, calling on the EU to launch a “modernisation partnership” with Russia, establishing an economic space with “common security concepts”, including visa-free travel and cooperation on European security. The United States was pointedly not mentioned though the security issues involved “the Euro-Atlantic and Eurasian zones”, a half-step towards Medvedev’s proposal for a new European Security Treaty in 2008.

Despite the professed devotion of the French and German leaders to the US and the war in Afghanistan, this clear outreach to Russia by the EU’s most important members is an expression of the geopolitical logic at work as the US flounders and Russia matures into an unavoidable and increasingly desirable Eurasian partner. It is Russia that provides Europe with access to a large market and source of raw materials -- a peaceful gateway to the entire continent. This contrasts with the US/NATO forced march from Eurasia’s underbelly, creating enemies from the Middle East through Iran to China. Spoiler Britain was pointedly left out of the Deauville summit. Even at its most Atlantist, Russia is establishing a new configuration without the Ango-American empire at the centre.

Both the power struggle among Russia’s political elite and the developing facts-on-the-ground in Afghanistan and Washington, where START is probably not going to be ratified by the Senate, will determine just how US-Euro-Russian relations fare, and whether calls for Putin to run for president in 2012 result in a return of Russian geopolitical strategy to the Eurasian path it was taking prior to Medvedev. Medvedev’s abrupt cancellation of the S-300 missile deal with Iran was not a popular one; it “undermines Russia’s prestige and erodes its security, making the world less safe for every one of us. At the moment, the Islamic world has reasons to believe that Moscow has switched to the camp of its foes,” warns former Russian Joint Chief of Staff member General Leonid Ivashov.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, taking a leaf from both Lavrov and Ivashov, insisted at the summit that any missile defence shield should protect NATO members from real threats, which translates into Turkish as “protecting NATO members from Israel, not Iran”. He called for a nuclear weapons-free zone ranging from Iran to Israel. Davutoglu might have felt more comfortable outside the summit with members of the “No to War – No to NATO” alliance, who continued their tradition of using NATO summits as platforms of protest against war and militarism. They installed a Square of Peace and held a counter summit and International Anti-war Assembly, suggesting their own Strategic Doctrine for NATO -- euthanasia.

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Eric Walberg writes for Al-Ahram Weekly http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/ You can reach him at http://ericwalberg.com/

Israel in America: Obama's dance of death

What are we to make of the latest changes in Obama's entourage, ponders Eric Walberg

Obama has just lost his close friend and chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, who is making the unusual transition from national to municipal politics. He is also losing his closest adviser David Axelrod (pragmatist Emanuel described their difference as prose versus poetry) and his mentor and director of the National Economic Council Larry Summers.

Why are Obama's three closest advisers -- all Jewish -- leaving? There is no pat answer. Axelrod is no friend of Summers, having suggested in an email the latter would be more comfortable in the “cafeteria at Goldman Sachs”. He claims he is homesick. Obama's Keynesianism probably finally got to Summers, who prefers tax cuts. Emanuel, a former congressman, a talented ballet dancer, son of an Irgun terrorist, and an Israeli soldier during the first Gulf war against Iraq, leads us to the real answer.

As a very, very strong Zionist (dual citizen? sayan?), he is Israel's canary in the White House. Israel boycotted Obama's UN speech at the Millennium Goals Summit in September, and has subjected Obama to dose after dose of humiliating treatment, the latest when Netanyahu asked for the pardon of Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard (serving a life sentence) in exchange for a temporary halt in settlement expansion. Netanyahu defiantly visited Pollard in jail in 2002 and he is celebrated as a hero in yearly commemorations in Israel. There seems to be an eerie replay of 1991, the last time the White House seriously tried to stop the settlements. The Israel lobby abandoned Bush then and destroyed him in the 1992 elections.

The writing is on the wall: Obama is a one-term president. That is if he is even allowed to finish his first term. Obama was never popular in Israel. When he tried to add Israeli critic Chas Freeman to his team as chair of the National Intelligence Council in 2009 AIPAC blew a fuse. Now there are even threats against his life as a result of his stance on settlements and his reluctance to attack Iran. Loud protests in front of Netanyahu’s residence witness crowds burning effigies of Obama “the new Pharaoh”, “the descendant of slaves” who must be put in his place.

Obama, son of a Kenyan Muslim and American expat radical, is facing equally vicious bigotry by non-Jews. He is attacked at home by Americans of more traditional backgrounds who call him a communist and are incensed by his unusual origins and his unrepresentative entourage. Apocalyptic movements and rightwing "patriotic" militias, which grew under Clinton but abated under Bush junior, are increasing rapidly under Obama, and more staid but equally frustrated Americans conduct political "tea parties", confused and desperate for both stability and real change.

For despite the radically different appearance of Obama's "change" administration (including the colourful Emanuel), his policies have provided neither stability nor any real change. They are remarkably like those of his predecessor. The unwieldy and disappointing healthcare reform aside, the bankers and generals have been given just about whatever they ask for, Guantanamo stays open and torture continues. US troops stay in Iraq and Afghanistan. The economic morass Obama inherited from Bush merely deepens.

And what is Emanuel's legacy? According to critics, he was responsible for scuttling the real public healthcare option, leaving it in the hands of private insurers. He was courted by a litany of Wall Street officials and business leaders from day one. Emanuel’s White House calendar was filled with the likes of Comcast VP David Cohen (who just happened to have mergers pending), Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan, JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon, and New York Daily News owner Mortimer Zuckerman, who showed up three times in two months.

With the Republicans poised to take control of one or both houses in November, Rahmbo, as he is affectionately known for his ruthless strong-arm tactics in the political ring, can safely jump ship just before it sinks. He is clearly betting that his friendship with Chicago's darling, America's first black president, will see him to victory in safely Democratic Chicago.

But, why the municipal ring? Yes, his "friend" Obama is toast. But is it possible Emanuel's sudden interest in local politics is because he realises presidents, senators and the like have very little real power to make decisions anyway? That a mayor can at least leave a visible legacy -- bike paths, community centres, parks? Or is he just bored, looking for a challenge where he can flex his muscles anew, flit gracefully across the political stage yet again as prince charming seducing the sleeping Miss America?

Whatever his motives, Rahmbo epitomises the shallowness, the effeteness of American politics today. The president of the most powerful nation on earth is powerless. A stuffed shirt. A photo op. A cultured Afro-American presiding over the most brutal empire the world has every known. Emanuel "made him" and has decided to leave him to his fate, to yet again play games with the US media and political circles, like a virtual performer orchestrating a grand reality game.

Pundits are mixed in assessing his chances. His strongest supporters are Chicago's white moneyed class and the business community, who favour Emanuel’s run because of his history as a Washington power broker, says political analyst Charles Dunn. “His pockets are overflowing with IOUs” and he will be able to call in past favours, giving him a huge advantage over his many competitors.

But he has little appeal to the 35 per cent of Chicagoans who are black and the 28 per cent who are Hispanic. His challengers are predominantly minority candidates, including James Meeks, a state senator and Baptist minister, and Chicago City Clerk Miguel del Valle. Many minority leaders, including several aldermen, have already made statements saying they will not support Emanuel’s candidacy. The field is very much open. In fact the call among those unhappy with machine politics in the Chicago is "Abre" -- "Anyone but Rahm Emanuel", which translates into Spanish as "Open".

As a Jew, Emanuel is very much a supporter of minority rights, but these real minorities understand that Jewish support for them from the likes of Rahmbo is only skin deep, so to speak. CNN's Hispanic host Rick Sanchez shocked Americans last week for saying as much on air. Sanchez is constantly ridiculed by Jewish TV satirist Jon Stewart, and finally fought back, calling Stewart a "bigot" with "a white liberal establishment point-of-view", saying CNN and the media are largely run by Jews and elitists. Of course, he was immediately fired, but no one can dispute the truth behind his outburst. Says analyst Peter Myers, "Other minorities are accorded status only on condition that the Jewish minority remains number one."

Compounding Emanuel’s difficulties is the expected candidacy of Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart, who is white (but not Jewish), and well-liked among black and Latino voters because of his highly publicised refusal to evict renters of foreclosed buildings and his prosecution of the owners of a historic black cemetery who illegally exhumed 300 bodies for profit.

Is any of this of importance to the world at large? Do the departures of Emanuel, Axelrod and Summers portend a more even-handed policy on the Middle East -- a defiance of Israel in the remaining two years of his one-term presidency? Will he suddenly cut Israel's massive aid budget and insist it withdraw from occupied lands? Will (largely Jewish) bankers and other elite miscreants be subpoenaed and jailed for their many crimes, as happened to an earlier Chicagoan, Moses Annenberg, who was jailed for tax evasion in the 1930s under president Roosevelt?

The answer is of course "no". I mention Annenberg, because he was a Jewish Chicago media magnate and underworld figure brought down by a president who still wielded some power. His son Walter Annenberg continued in his father's less-than-pristine footsteps, but covered them with the Annenberg Foundation, lavishing money on "good causes". He rightly realised he could use a liberal facade and his newspapers to make or break politicians, rather than be broken by them.

Like Obama and Emanuel, Annenberg's story is the stuff of legend. His publishing empire grew and grew, he was Nixon's ambassador to the UK and so charmed the Queen that she made him an honourary knight (Americans disdain such unseemly titles). All the time he was "conservative" Ronald Reagan’s “best friend" according to Nancy Reagan.

The “liberal” Barack Obama first gained political prominence as an activist with the Annenberg Foundation's Education Challenge. Annenberg, who died in 2002, would be delighted to know his charitable works in Chicago helped elect the first black president, whose "Israel first!" chief of staff would go on to become the city's first Jewish mayor, putting the real minorities in their place. Will Emanuel sail to victory on a pro-Israeli whirlwind, or can a plucky Dart prick the Zionist balloon and bring the circus to a halt?

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Eric Walberg writes for Al-Ahram Weekly http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/ You can reach him at http://ericwalberg.com/

Turkey and Russia: Cleaning up the mess in the Middle East

The new Ottomans and the new Byzantines are poised for an intercept as the US stumbles in the current Great Game, reports Eric Walberg

The neocon plan to transform the Middle East and Central Asia into a pliant client of the US empire and its only-democracy-in-the-Middle-East is now facing a very different playing field. Not only are the wars against the Palestinians, Afghans and Iraqis floundering, but they have set in motion unforeseen moves by all the regional players.

The empire faces a resurgent Turkey, heir to the Ottomans, who governed a largely peaceful Middle East for half a millennium. As part of a dynamic diplomatic outreach under the Justice and Development Party (AKP), Turkey re-established the Caliphate visa-free tradition with Albania, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya and Syria last year. In February Turkish Culture and Tourism Minister Ertugrul Gunay offered to do likewise with Egypt. There is “a great new plan of creating a Middle East Union as a regional equivalent of the European Union” with Turkey, fresh from a resounding constitutional referendum win by the AKP, writes Israel Shamir.

Turkey also established a strategic partnership with Russia during the past two years, with a visa-free regime and ambitious trade and investment plans (denominated in rubles and lira), including the construction of new pipelines and nuclear energy facilities.

Just as Turkey is heir to the Ottomans, Russia is heir to the Byzantines, who ruled a largely peaceful Middle East for close to a millennium before the Turks. Together, Russia and Turkey have far more justification as Middle Eastern "hegemons" than the British-American 20th century usurpers, and they are doing something about it.

In a delicious irony, invasions by the US and Israel in the Middle East and Eurasia have not cowed the countries affected, but emboldened them to work together, creating the basis for a new alignment of forces, including Russia, Turkey, Syria and Iran.

Syria, Turkey and Iran are united not only by tradition, faith, resistance to US-Israeli plans, but by their common need to fight Kurdish separatists, who have been supported by both the US and Israel. Their economic cooperation is growing by leaps and bounds. Adding Russia to the mix constitutes a like-minded, strong regional force encompassing the full socio-political spectrum, from Sunni and Shia Muslim, Christian, even Jewish, to secular traditions.

This is the natural regional geopolitical logic, not the artificial one imposed over the past 150 years by the British and now US empires. Just as the Crusaders came to wreak havoc a millennium ago, forcing locals to unite to expel the invaders, so today's Crusaders have set in motion the forces of their own demise.

Turkey's bold move with Brazil to defuse the West's stand-off with Iran caught the world's imagination in May. Its defiance of Israel after the Israeli attack on the Peace Flotilla trying to break the siege of Gaza in June made it the darling of the Arab world.

Russia has its own, less spectacular contributions to these, the most burning issues in the Middle East today. There are problems for Russia. Its crippled economy and weakened military give it pause in anything that might provoke the world superpower. Its elites are divided on how far to pursuit accommodation with the US. The tragedies of Afghanistan and Chechnya and fears arising from the impasse in most of the “stans” continue to plague Russia’s relations with the Muslim Middle East.

Since the departure of Soviet forces from Egypt in 1972, Russia has not officially had a strong presence in the Middle East. Since the mid- 1980s, it saw a million-odd Russians emigrate to Israel, who like immigrants anywhere, are anxious to prove their devotion and are on the whole unwilling to give up land in any two-state solution for Palestine. As Anatol Sharansky quipped to Bill Clinton after he emigrated, “I come from one of the biggest countries in the world to one of the smallest. You want me to cut it in half. No, thank you.” Russia now has its very own well-funded Israel Lobby; many Russians are dual Israeli citizens, enjoying a visa-free regime with Israel.

Then there is Russia's equivocal stance on the stand-off between the West and Iran. Russia cooperates with Iran on nuclear energy, but has concerns about Iran's nuclear intentions, supporting Security Council sanctions and cancelling the S-300 missile deal it signed with Iran in 2005. It is also increasing its support for US efforts in Afghanistan. Many commentators conclude that these are signs that the Russian leadership under President Dmitri Medvedev is caving in to Washington, backtracking on the more anti-imperial policy of Putin. "They showed that they are not reliable," criticised Iranian Defence Minister Ahmad Vahidi.

Russia is fence-sitting on this tricky dilemma. It is also siding, so far, with the US and the EU in refusing to include Turkey and Brazil in the negotiations over Iran's nuclear programme. “The Non-Aligned countries in general, and Iran in particular, have interpreted the Russian vote as the will on the part of a great power to prevent emerging powers from attaining the energy independence they need for their economic development. And it will be difficult to make them forget this Russian faux pas,” argues Thierry Meyssan at voltairenet.org.

Whatever the truth is there, the cooperation with Iran and now Turkey, Syria and Egypt on developing peaceful nuclear power, and the recent agreement to sell Syria advanced P-800 cruise missiles show Russia is hardly the plaything of the US and Israel in Middle East issues. Israel is furious over the missile sale to Syria, and last week threatened to sell “strategic, tie-breaking weapons” to “areas of strategic importance” to Russia in revenge. On both Iran and Syria, Russia's moves suggest it is trying to calm volatile situations that could explode.

There are other reasons to see Russia as a possible Middle East powerbroker. The millions of Russian Jews who moved to Israel are not necessarily a Lieberman-like Achilles Heel for Russia. A third of them are scornfully dismissed as not sufficiently kosher and could be a serious problem for a state that is founded solely on racial purity. Many have returned to Russia or managed to move on to greener pastures. Already, such prominent rightwing politicians as Moshe Arens, political patron of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, are considering a one-state solution. Perhaps these Russian immigrants will produce a Frederik de Klerk to re-enact the dismantling of South African apartheid.

Russia holds another intriguing key to peace in the Middle East. Zionism from the start was a secular socialist movement, with religious conservative Jews strongly opposed, a situation that continues even today, despite the defection of many under blandishments from the likes of Ben Gurion and Netanyahu. Like the Palestinians, True Torah Jews don’t recognise the “Jewish state”.

But wait! There is a legitimate Jewish state, a secular one set up in 1928 in Birobidjan Russia, in accordance with Soviet secular nationalities policies. There is nothing stopping the entire population of Israeli Jews, orthodox and secular alike, from decamping to this Jewish homeland, blessed with abundant raw materials, Golda Meir’s “a land without a people for a people without a land”. It has taken on a new lease on life since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Russian President Dmitri Medvedev made an unprecedented visit this summer, the first ever of a Russian (or Soviet) leader and pointed out the strong Russian state support it has as a Jewish homeland where Yiddish, the secular language of European Jews (not sacred Hebrew), is the state language.

There has been no magic hand guiding Turkey and Russia as they form the axis of a new political formation. Rather it is the resilience of Islam in the face of Western onslaught, plus -- surprisingly -- a page from the history of Soviet secular national self-determination. Turkey, once the “sick man of Europe”, is now "the only healthy man of Europe", Turkish President Abdullah Gul was told at the UN Millennium Goals Summit last week, positioning it along with the Russian, and friends Iranian and Syrian to clean up the mess created by the British empire and its “democratic” offspring, the US and Israel.

While US and Israeli strategists continue to pore over mad schemes to invade Iran, Russian and Turkish leaders plan to increase trade and development in the Middle East, including nuclear power. From a Middle Eastern point of view, Russia’s eagerness to build power stations in Iran, Turkey, Syria and Egypt shows a desire to help accelerate the economic development that Westerners have long denied the Middle East -- other than Israel -- for so long. This includes Lebanon where Stroitransgaz and Gazprom will transit Syrian gas until Beirut can overcome Israeli-imposed obstacles to the exploitation of its large reserves offshore.

Russia in its own way, like its ally Turkey, has placed itself as a go-between in the most urgent problems facing the Middle East -- Palestine and Iran. “Peace in the Middle East holds the key to a peaceful and stable future in the world,” Gul told the UN Millennium Goals Summit -- in English. The world now watches to see if their efforts will bear fruit.
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Eric Walberg writes for Al-Ahram Weekly http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/ You can reach him at http://ericwalberg.com