Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

Satire A teenager's trip to Israel

From identity politics to academic masturbation

Turkey Inside the Islamic Cult Whose Leader is Embraced by Israeli Figures

From the Financial Times Brexit reinforces Britain's imperial amnesia

The Peculiar Modalities of Capitalism in the Arab Region

One of the tools of the oppressor, the terrorist state, is to portray itself as a victim.  And the rest of humanity enjoys the spectacle, as usual. Muslims and non-Muslims have watched the Syrians massacred, the Yemenis slaughtered, refugees drowning, Rohingyas "genocided" ...  The more I hear and read about this, the more I feel ashamed of myself and my position in this world. I had years of struggles and protests against both: first against a police state and then against imperialist one. I came to realise the futility of such struggle. I despaired. The more I read about the last two centuries, the more I know about the huge scientific progress as well as about barbarism and our collective complicity in it. And, sadly, our complacency and complicity will continue in the coming atrocities. My only solace is to continue reading in order to keep a sharp mind; to survive in a swamp. "Area of terror"

Where are those £10 billion deals with our Saudi Friends? Will there be any trickle down? Child poverty in England

The Israeli "Left" "The Zionist left has an almost genetic structural problem — the awful contradiction between the left and Zionism, certainly in the reality of the Zionist apartheid of 2018 and the deliberate blurring of the term Zionism. The Zionist left is trying as hard as it can to hide the contradiction, cover it up, blur it, repress and deny it – but it doesn’t have a chance. As long as it sticks to its Zionism and as long as that Zionism is by definition a non-egalitarian ideology, which deprives, dispossesses, evicts and occupies, grants privileges to only one part of the country’s residents and not the other – that left cannot be a left. It’s merely a softer, more moderate right, a more restrained and liberally-styled version of the nationalist right." — Gideon Levy on Haaretz

It is mot about stating the obvious; it is about how you state it beautifully and succinctly. Do we get paid what we "deserve"?

The killing of Palestinians is accepted in Israel more lightly than the killing of mosquitoes. There’s nothing cheaper in Israel than Palestinian blood. If there were a hundred or even a thousand deaths Israel would still “salute” the IDF. The Israel Massacre Forces. Again.