Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

Succinct. First and foremost is the fact that the Euro-American settler colony of Israel is already practising its version of “from the river to the sea” in Palestine. While the Palestinians “ have turned the armed robbery of their homeland into a motto for their national liberation movement and anti-colonial struggle.” Min annahr ilā albahr Buenos Arires, May 17th, 2021. Photo: Manuel Cortina/NurPhoto via AP via Jewish Currents

Let’s not forget that state and social movements relation are governed by the political economy of a given period and how confident – and far – could the state go in repression and beyond the daily oppression. We should also differentiate between security states where regimes use all necessary means to survive and the advanced capitalist states where maintaining the status quo means rotation of governments, which have significant resources at their disposal, powerful media and interest groups that marginalise and vilify dissent. That also apply globally where international capital, international institutions and organisations and states work together to support or divert and co-opt this or that social movement when it suits their interests.  ‘ How elites are crushing dissent ’ in Britain or France should be read differently from how regimes in Egypt, Iran or Russia exercise repression. After all, the title of the article does not apply to Britain, Germany, or even to France, where ther

I think ‘Western imperialism’ in the title is an overstretch. The article does not deal with Western imperialism. Nor does it mention economic imperialism. “Starmer’s flame-war against the left has become so extreme that, as some critics have pointed out, both Pope Francis and Amnesty International would face expulsion from Starmer’s Labour Party were they members. ”

A very good approach. Semitism and Islamophobia as parallel manifestations of contemporary racism

After a few days of deliberation, Boris Johnson, a racist PM , has finally managed to show courage and condemn ‘anti-Semitic abuse’ in London. Apparently, some protesters have used guided missiles to penetrate the Iron Dome* of the nation, killing more than 180 people.  The brave PM has also expressed his resolve to hunt down the perpetrators. “We will bring them to justice,” he added with a smile. Courage also means holding your ground as an imperialist with a great empire in your psyche and national pride, standing firm with the state terror of an ally.  * The Iron Dome was developed in the aftermath of Brexit to protect the frontline workers and the healthcare system, to eliminate corruption and nepotism, to prevent any radicalism or any revival of trade union power, and to ward off the undesirable from entering the country. It has been alleged that contracts for construction of the Dome went to friends and associates. I, for one, don’t believe it. 

  200 academics back lecturer under attack from ‘proud Zionists’

 Why the Australian state supports Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians

Ishmahil Blagrove, 21 November 2020: It’s interesting how some people nowadays avoid using ‘the ruling class’ and opt for ‘the establishment’.          

 Weaponisation of Labour Anti-Semitism

 Jeremy Corbyn: Seize the time! John Molyneux, 29 October 2020 Today’s suspension of Jeremy Corbyn by Keir Starmer  is outrageous but it is also the culmination of a long process that began the moment Corbyn was elected as leader of the Labour Party. From the very first day the British political establishment, led by David Cameron and supported by most of the mainstream media and a considerable section of the Parliamentary Labour Party, set out to discredit and destroy him.  This project had nothing to do with Corbyn’s personal strengths or weaknesses and absolutely nothing to do with anti-semitism,  real or alleged.  The motive was simple and obvious: from the outset they perceived Corbyn and especially those who supported him and were mobilized by him as a threat to their interests, precisely because he had a long record as a socialist, as an anti-racist campaigner, as a defender of workers’ rights and, particularly, as an opponent of war and British imperialism. The last they found

 Written by Vasily Grossman in 1959 Anti-Semitism can take many forms – from a mocking, contemptuous ill-will to murderous pogroms. Anti-Semitism can be met with in the market and in the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences, in the soul of an old man and in the games children play in the yard. Anti-Semitism has been as strong in the age of atomic reactors and computers as in the age of oil-lamps, sailing-boats and spinning-wheels. Anti-Semitism is always a means rather than an end; it is a measure of the contradictions yet to be resolved. It is a mirror for the failings of individuals, social structures and State systems. Tell me what you accuse the Jews of – I'll tell you what you're guilty of. Even Oleinichuk, the peasant fighter for freedom who was imprisoned in Schlusselburg, somehow expressed his hatred for serfdom as a hatred for Poles and Yids. Even a genius like Dostoyevsky saw a Jewish usurer where he should have seen the pitiless eyes of a Russian serf-owner, industri

“[ P]rogressives remain fixated on how to revive the world that engendered the present disorder. They constructed and managed that world, and it flattered their self-image as the rational vanguard of the species. It is only to be expected that they should yearn for the return of their now bankrupt authority. Yet few aspects of the contemporary scene are more laughably grotesque than defunct politicians and advisers demanding a return to the politics of competence and expertise that produced the dysfunctional euro, the ruinous Iraq War, the financial crisis, anarchy in Libya and the regime of globalisation that is currently collapsing.” State of the nation - we are entering a new age of disorder

The Specters of Comparison

A rhetoric of "justice" that has never been heard of by an American presidential candidate. However, what strategy does Bernie have to fundamentally change the foreign policies of the strongest imperialist state in the world, and thus to lay down the conditions for a possible "justice" for the Palestinians. Why Arab Americans and Muslims are voting for Bernie 

The new socialism of fools

Labour's defeat and the triupmh of Johnsonism  (Part 1)

Raine "never makes clear his explanation for where modern anti-Semitism originates, what structures give rise to it, and therefore – by extension – where one should focus energy to challenge it. The very movement between anti-Semitism and Jewophobia throughout the piece captures something of this lacuna. At times, Raine seems to describe a cultural phenomenon that he feels always already exists, and is not in fact constructed and imposed. As such he describes it variously as an ‘unconscious phobia of Jews’, ‘a structure of thinking’, a form of ‘anti-political pessimism’, and as a ‘discourse’, never rooting these in anything structurally identifiable.  This leaves the reader with the impression that anti-Semitism can be explained by means of mere ideas, or via culture, rather than requiring a material explanation and history." Recentering the state

The cartoons the Guardian refused to publish

Britain and beyond "There is a conspiracy at work here, though it is not of the kind lampooned by critics: a small cabal of the rich secretly pulling the strings of our societies. The conspiracy operates at an institutional level, one that has evolved over time to create structures and refine and entrench values that keep power and wealth in the hands of the few. In that sense we are all part of the conspiracy. It is a conspiracy that embraces us every time we unquestioningly accept the “consensual” narratives laid out for us by our education systems, politicians and media. Our minds have been occupied with myths, fears and narratives that turned us into the turkeys that keep voting for Christmas." I disagree though with Cook in describing Corbyn's election as the Labour Party leader an "accident". Cook should know that even in the most conservative situations, cumulative processes and contradictions create cracks, fissures, and openings, sometimes big, som