Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

“The question has never been whether individual acts of sexual assault may have occurred  on October 7.  The central issue is whether the New York Times presented solid evidence that Hamas deliberately and systematically deployed sexual violence as a weapon. And to this day, neither the Times nor any other institution has presented compelling proof to back that explosive assertion.” Full email from The Intercept, 15 March 2024: Over the last few weeks, The Intercept has exposed massive holes in the New York Times’s marquee front-page exposé on alleged sexual violence committed  on October 7. Instead of addressing the gaping flaws in the story and issuing a correction, the Times has launched an internal “witch hunt” targeting employees based on their national origin, ethnicity, and race to track down anyone who may have talked to The Intercept about the story, according to the union that represents the Times newsroom employees. The Intercept is continuing to investigate and expose false

At issue is not an accidental, negligible or ‘unfortunate’ streak of racism in the works of a stellar European philosopher.

El Mahala Textile in Egypt has been in turmoil

An interview with Malaika Jabali Correction:  “I feature Frida Kahlo, who was a part of the Communist Party.” She was in the Mexican Communist Party, not the American one.

The colour of economic anxiety

“Adenauer’s language at their meeting was unambiguous: Israel, he said, is a ‘fortress of the West’ and ‘I can already now tell you that we will help you, we will not leave you alone.’ Six decades on, Israel’s security is Germany’s Staatsräson, as Angela Merkel put it in 2008. The phrase has been repeatedly invoked, with more vehemence than clarity, by German leaders in the weeks since 7 October. Adenauer determined that his country needed greater sovereignty and a greater role in Western economic and security alliances; Germany’s long road west lay through Israel. West Germany moved fast after 1960, becoming the most important supplier of military hardware to Israel in addition to being the main enabler of its economic modernisation. Commenting on Israel’s successes in the 1967 war,  Die Welt  regretted German ‘infamies’ about the Jewish people: the belief that they were ‘without national sentiment; never ready for battle, but always keen to profit from somebody else’s war effort’. Th

Verbal gymnastics

Free yourselves from the indoctrination presented to you as innate knowledge. My generation lived through war and fascism. Through this experience, we reached the conclusion that there should never be war again. My generation experienced fascism, which at first we accepted. We didn’t know about what was going on in the concentration camps — there were no Jews in my Pomeranian village, and we didn’t know what was happening to Jewish people. These were all realizations that I had to come to later. It was then that I came to the conclusion that this fascism — which was, of course, also an outgrowth from humanity — had an economic base supporting it. Where did the cannons come from, who built the bombers, who desired this? And who is alive today and profiting from war? Where do new developments come from? Anyone sitting in their car today with their sat nav should be aware that this is a by-product of the production of weapons for war. So, the only advice I can give is to critically questi

A liberal summary of the political economy of Britain  “Britain has been a  high-inequality, high-poverty nation  for most of the last 200 years, with significant consequences for life chances, social resilience, and economic strength. With the exception of the immediate post-war era, the struggles for share over the last 200 years have been won by the richest and most affluent sections of society, often with the compliance of the state. Under extraction, economic activity becomes detached from new wealth creation, with the boost to profitability and rising corporate surpluses of recent times used to reward executives and investors rather than boost productivity.” *** Unsurprisingly, not a single mention of Britain’s ‘extractive’ capitalism within its functioning as imperialist state, analysing the British economy in isolation of the global economy and global sociology. (e.g. defeat and weakening of social forces/struggle at home and abroad,‘neoliberalism’ as a global form of capitalis

 واشنطن والسوريالية