Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

The data on the impact of the decades-long embargo ranges from a ‘negligible’ effect to ‘an extreme’ one. “Since 1992, the UN General Assembly has passed a non-binding resolution every year, except for 2020, condemning the ongoing impact of the embargo and declaring it in violation of the Charter of the United Nations and of international law. There was no voting on this issue in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Israel [surprise! surprise!] is the only country that routinely joins the U.S. in voting against the resolution…187 countries voted in favor of the resolution in 2023, with only the United States and Israel voting against it and Ukraine abstaining.”  ( Wikipedia )

“The [London] Metropolitan Police declined to comment.” “The cyber spying firm [NSO Group] has never been sanctioned in the U.K.” “[S]o far there have been no formal charges.” “In 2023, the management of five NSO-linked companies was moved to London and two U.K.-based officers were appointed.” “ [S]o far we have seen an absolute non-reaction”  [from the UK Government].

“Western powers usually legitimize military interventions in terms of a proclaimed commitment to some universalist norm or to some goal embodying such a norm. These declared goals can oscillate, but they  are important because a central element of their foreign policy, particularly when it involves starting a war, is maintaining the support of their domestic population. In the Anglo-Saxon countries, people like to think of themselves as the guardians and promoters, through their states, of the most civilized, humane, liberal and democratic values in the world. It is true that they have short attention spans and are generally far more ignorant of the world outside their borders than the populations of many other countries,  but at least the elected leaders of their states can run into domestic trouble if the declared norms and goals are not implemented or if implementation is carried through with such barbarity that they contradict other, more basic, norms and goals .”  —P...

Prophetic and timely Alain Badiou, June 1982 I don't much like to speak about the jewish question', as did Marx and Sartre, because the absolute atrocities the Nazis committed in the name of the 'final solution' have adversely rebounded on the very notion that there is a 'question' to which it would be appropriate to give a response. I might add that, on this issue, one ought to speak, absolutely, in one's own name, with one's own voice. As regards questions, I start from this: there are Jews. I do not ask why there are, nor where they come from, because such stories of origin and provenance are in themselves dubious. ‘Jews' is the name of our real, a glorious name of our history – especially of our philosophical, scientific, artistic and our revolutionary history. And I say this: Hitler proposed to eliminate Jews in their physicality. His will was completely criminal, including what of such a crime must remain hidden, clandestine. The Nazi administr...

“In 1986 the Economist reported that recent scandals had “raised doubts abroad that the City of London is the most honest place to do business”. Lord Roskill, the senior judge Margaret Thatcher’s government appointed to examine the state of fraud in the UK, agreed. ‘While petty frauds, clumsily committed, are likely to be detected and punished, it is all too likely that the largest and most cleverly executed crimes escape unpunished’, his commission reported.” That is in line with a Czech proverb: the big thieves hang the small ones. “The harder and more complex the investigations it [the Serious Fraud Office] takes on, the more it is fulfilling its mission – and the likelier it is to fail.” “Having ruled that the agency mistreated the Trio’s corporate empire [ENRC/Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation], a judge will now decide how much UK taxpayers’ money should be paid to the oligarchs’ company in damages. The SFO has set aside a quarter of a billion pounds.” “On 24 August 2023, 10 ...

It is a long article. “These students were not necessarily representative of the student body in Israel as a whole. They were activists in extreme rightwing organisations. But in many ways, what they were saying reflected a much more widespread sentiment in the country.” “Unlike the majority of Israelis, these young people had seen the destruction of Gaza with their own eyes. It seemed to me that they had not only internalised a particular view that has become commonplace in Israel – namely, that the destruction of Gaza as such was a legitimate response to 7 October – but had also developed a way of thinking that I had observed many years ago when studying the conduct, worldview and self-perception of German army soldiers in the second world war. Having internalised certain views of the enemy – the Bolsheviks as Untermenschen; Hamas as human animals – and of the wider population as less than human and undeserving of rights, soldiers observing or perpetrating atrocities tend to ascribe ...

An interview with Vanessa Wills, author of Marx’s Ethical Vision

 حوار مع فانيسا ويلز

Where can Palestinian visual and performing art go from here?   

  We declare  our right on this earth to be a man, to be a human being, to be respected as a human being, to be given the rights of a human being in this society, on this earth, in this day, which we intend to bring into existence by any means necessary.          —Malcolm X said in a   rousing speech in 1964