Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

Arab Centre for Research and Policy Studies, based in Qatar, conducted a poll of 8000 Arabs in 16 Arab societies . One of the results is: “67% of the polled agreed that Hamas attack on 7 October was ‘a legitimate resistance operation’.  If the poll is really reflective, it means there are so many ‘terrorists’ in the Arab societies and ‘the free world’ has a bigger task in eradicating them, which means it is ‘Islam’ and ‘Muslims’ are to blame, it is in their history and character, they really hate ‘the only democracy in the Middle East’ and therefore they ‘hate us and they are against our values’, and the ‘war on terror’ must indeed be an endless war.

Vladimir Jabotinsky, the erudite and much misunderstood Zionist leader who posthumously became the founding father of the Israeli right (one of his closest aides, Benzion Netanyahu, was the father of the current prime minister) in his famous 1923 essay : My readers have a general idea of the history of colonization in other countries. I suggest that they consider all the precedents with which they are acquainted, and see whether there is one solitary instance of any colonization being carried on with the consent of the native population. There is no such precedent. The native populations, civilized or uncivilized, have always stubbornly resisted the colonists, irrespective of whether they were civilized or savage. And it made no difference whatever whether the colonists behaved decently or not. The companions of Cortez and Pizzaro or (as some people will remind us) our own ancestors under Joshua Ben Nun, behaved like brigands; but the Pilgrim Fathers, the first real pioneers of North A

The objective of the US-UK imperialism strikes on Yemen is to stop the disruption to one of the arteries if capital accumulation and support Israel’s goals on its war on the Palestinians. The strikes on the Houthis might actually embolden the Houthis and see they support strengthened .  Everything that was worth striking has been struck by the Saudi coalition in the past nine years,” al-Iryani said, referring to the war waged against the Houthis by a Saudi-led coalition that began fighting the Houthis in 2015 after they had overthrown President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, head of the internationally recognised government. “I don’t think [US attacks on Houthi targets] are going to act as a deterrent to the Houthis,” Raiman al-Hamdani, a researcher at the ARK Group said.

I wonder why the comparison of the civilian deaths is focused on the civilian deaths during the US-led campaign against ISIS. Is the implication ‘the collateral damage is worth it’? ISIS attacked civilians in ‘democracies’. Hamas attacked ‘the only democracy in the Middle East’. Both organisations are ‘terrorists’, according to the ‘free world’. Israel’s war on Palestinians in numbers

Source: the Financial Times 02 January 2024 Related Visualising Palestine: Gaza

Double standards even in terms of ‘internal law’ and liberal dogma

“There are other times when I seek out the wisdom of those human beings who refused to turn their faces from forms of social terror and found strength to endure.” A good and stimulating interview . Contrary to the title though, the treatment of the relevance of Malcolm X’s ideas in the exchange between Yancy and Sawyer are marginal.  

The genocidal drive to 'exterminate all the brutes' is embedded deep in the US and European leaders’ psyches . Related Source: Internet Archive

Israel is indeed committing genocide Related Liberalism at Large :  The World According to the Economist The world the  Economist  made

“The main role of elite higher education institutions in America is to reproduce power and the infrastructure which attends it,” writes Ahmed Moor in the US . Yet he is the Democratic Party!

     Source: wikipedia “The United States in particular, but also Germany, will forever be closely associated with this unrelenting slaughter of thousands of innocent men, women and children, a slaughter that both countries continue to underwrite materially and diplomatically. The German government, led by its feminist foreign minister Annalena Baerbock, demands ‘humanitarian pauses’ as an alternative to peace, after which the killings are to continue until ‘Hamas’, prepared for death by a free UNRWA meal, will finally be ‘rooted out’. The Gaza massacre risks turning Israel into one of the most hated countries in the world, together with Germany – which unlike the US is solidly united behind the Netanyahu government…” Wolfgang Streeck on submarines, nuclear weapons, ‘the Samson option’, myths as a source of power.

With the evidence we have so far, I think we can call it “an-going genocide. Israeli Holocaust historian Raz Segev was the first to point out that this war is  “a textbook case of genocide” The International Bureau of the International Federation for Human Rights has adopted a resolution recognizing Israel’s actions against the Palestinian people as  “ an ongoing genocide ”. “Most states (and political leaders) prefer to avoid using the term ‘genocide’, because if they recognize it, they must act, in accordance with the convention they have signed, to ‘prevent’it or to ‘put an immediate end to it’. And this, obviously, is not on their agenda.” A demonstrator carries an image of Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu and  US  President Joe Biden painted red to imitate blood, during a march in support of the people of the Gaza Strip, in Nablus, occupied West Bank, October 26, 2023. Zain Jaafar/ AFP  via orientxxi.info

The Massacre of innocents  Scène du massacre des Innocents -  Léon Cogniet,  France,1824 In capitalist modernity

U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, left, and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant give a joint press conference in Tel Aviv on Dec. 18, 2023.   Photo: Alberto Pizzoli/AFP via Getty Images State terrorism and industrial killing won’t defeat the armed insurgency

“Israel’s war on Gaza has had an immense human cost, with nearly 20,000 Palestinians killed, 70% of them women and children. But it has also destroyed  numerous historic and cultural buildings  such as archaeological sites, museums, cultural centres, markets, ancient churches, and mosques.”

  غزة في الوثائق البريطانية

      Abu Ghraib, Iraq 2004 Gaza, Palestine 2023

Some good arguments. I see the absence of the American political economy in shaping its imperialism. Hinting to China and ‘normalisation’ with Israel does not allow us to delve into the structural, but we remain in the strategical. For example, what is the purpose of the U.S.’s drive to stabilise the region through pushing for ‘normalisation’? After all, ‘stability’ in the Middle East has been a Western aim for decades. The support of authoritarian regimes has been one of the mechanisms used. When one mentions hegemony, what does this hegemony consist of? American military, the wars, the massive sales of weapons, its NATO-led interventions, its ‘culture’ etc. what are they for? The unravelling of the U.S. position in the Middle East Palestinians transport the injured to the Indonesian Hospital in Jabalia, north of the Gaza Strip on October 9, 2023. Via meer.com

A wide-raging conversation with an esteemed historian Photo illustration: Elise Swain/The Intercept

A concentration camp Related From a recording of a talk by Finklestein in London in 2005 Beyond Chutzpah – on the misuse of antisemitism and the abuse of history