Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

From an interview with a former U.S special forces green beret

Shahid Bolsen   Yanis Varoufakis   Jeffrey Sachs John Mearsheimer   Walid Khalidi in 2009 Noam Chomsky in 2009 Noam Chomsky in 2006 or 2008 James Baldwin in 1979

A long [6400 words] but good summary and analysis by Adam Shatz . Here is a selection: – The United States has given its imprimatur to Israel’s regional hegemony. – When Trump made plain that he wanted Israel to stop bombing [Iran], Netanyahu had little choice but to acquiesce. – Israel also appears to be pursuing a long-range plan to weaken, if not to render defenceless, the other states in the region, so that none is in a position to challenge it. The instability and precariousness of such an order are evident to American and European politicians, but they prefer to remain discreet about them for fear of being accused of sympathy for Hamas or antisemitism. – For all Trump’s triumphalism, the ‘twelve-day war’, far from having ended Iran’s search for a nuclear weapon, may accelerate it. – Israel now has control of the airspace over Iran, Iraq, Lebanon and Syria – almost boundless room for manoeuvre – and has always favoured unilateral military assertion over diplomacy. – Netanyahu ...

'Zionism and its destiny ’

“Even if the US does not bomb Iran, it will continue to arm Israel. Either way, there will be serious implications for the Middle East and US politics. “Labour Party meetings and trade union meetings should pass resolutions demanding an end to the assault on Iran and further demanding that Britain should play no role in the attack on Iran, either directly or indirectly and socialists should support demonstrations, lobbies and rallies to that effect.” Even if resolutions were passed they would be defeated by Starmer and the right of the Labour Party.

“When people hear the word 'genocide', they probably think of Gaza, maybe Sudan. But the world’s worst genocide has been occurring in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where vicious wars have been fought for nearly three decades for power and control over critical minerals .” Note that the writer does not refer to the definition of genocide amd how it applies to the Congo. Related Africa's Leaky Giant

There is an opinion article on Middle East Monitor. Junaid S. Ahmad uses the word 'betrayal'. I think he is wrong. Every word has to be put beside its opposite when we look at life. Betrayal implies there was loyalty and faithfulness. That is misleading and no wonder there are still many people you see on the social media arguing for Arab unity and that Arab leaders should do something like building a united force, etc. Illusion is fundamental for the powerless . Arab regime have either used the Palestinian plight or ignored it altogether. Their interests and the interests of the Arab capitalists are so entangled with Western and Israeli interests. Then Ahmad frequently uses the phrase 'Muslim world'. There is no nuch a thing, as there is no such a thing as 'the free world'. There are different and very divided countries from Indonesia to Mauritania with not only different historical development, especially since the formal independence, but also even antagonist...

It is good to stay up to date with 'geopolitics', but political science without political economy does not reveal a more accurate picture of the world.

80 years since liberation from Nazi-fascism

By Marc Scully 22 April 2025 Pope Francis has died and eulogies are pouring in praising his concern for the poor, marginalized and dispossessed. Tell that to the thousands of young boys molested and sexually assaulted by Catholic priests. Pope Francis was supposed to clean up that criminality against children in the church but he did not and it prevails. Cleaning it up would have required turning offenders over to civil authorities for prosecution but Pope Francis continued to protect them. Pope Francis had an avuncular persona but contrary to the eulogies he does not have an inspiring history when it comes to standing with the oppressed. Serious questions remain about his role during Argentina's Dirty War, an anti-communist rampage under the military junta from 1976 to 1983 when at least 30,000 people were disappeared or killed in the most barbaric ways like pushing them out of airplanes over the ocean. Those questions about Pope Francis' role don't go away and it isn'...

 

For many, the memory of the Holocaust as a break with civilization is the moral foundation of the Federal Republic. To compare it with other genocides is therefore considered a heresy, an apostasy from the right faith. It is time to abandon this catechism .

“There can for present purposes be no question that there is sufficient evidence that the UAE is not only failing to prevent genocide, but is also complicit in genocide .”

Camilla Vallejo has made  anti-Zionist  remarks during her political career. In 2016 she called  Israel  "a terrorist State that seeks the displacement and extermination of Palestinians", and that the " Palestinian–Israeli conflict does  not constitute a war, but a genocide". She stated that "[t]his is not about  antisemitism  ... I emphatically condemn ... the impunity of a Zionist project that violates all international law, that seeks to oppress and exterminate a brother nation.”

Pankaj Mishra, author of The World After Gaza : “If you are going to remain a person with a conscience, then you've got to reconsider many of your alliances and professional relationships, or you stay within those institutions and become dead inside.” Pankaj, you have stirred your finger in my wound, as I carry on being complicit in genocide unable to break away from the web I am entangled in.

Marco D’Eramo We are growing habituated to the savagery, day by day. Then we wonder how the Germans could have ignored the genocide that was being perpetrated all round them. We, unbending guardians of Western values, implacable defenders of international law: we dine on mass murder  bien chambré . We are deeply pained by the deaths of ‘innocent civilians’, of course, saddened by the hospitals razed to the ground. Our hearts go out to the ragamuffins with no future who assail the few aid trucks that reach the Strip. We are distressed by the number of journalists being slaughtered. But the ‘humanitarian catastrophe’ in Gaza does not stop us sleeping at night, even as the situation worsens week by week. We supply the bombs and we feel sorry for their victims. Call it compassionate bombing. It is little wonder that the global South finds the West hypocritical. This would be less apparent if the Israeli government and its supporters would simply state outright that Israel has the right...

Consider your complicity in Gaza genocide this Eid

“Marc*: “We believe that there is no material problem … that cannot be solved by more technology. We had a problem of starvation, so we invented the Green Revolution.”  Göran**: “Sixty years after the Green Revolution, around 733 million people were hungry and undernourished in 2023, according to the World Health Organization — an increase of 152 million since 2019.” Marc: “We had a problem of darkness, so we invented electric lighting.”  Göran: “Almost half of sub-Saharan Africans — 600 million — live without electricity.” Marc: “We had a problem of cold, so we invented indoor heating.”  Göran: “There is still a pattern of increased winter mortality in the UK.“ Marc: “We had a problem of isolation, so we invented the Internet.”  Göran: “Social isolation remains a debilitating human condition.” Marc: “We had a problem of pandemics, so we invented vaccines.”  Göran: “Excess mortality as a result of COVID-19 has been found to cor...

—Siyavash Shahabi  on  March 26, 2025 Recommended  Liberalism – A Counter-History by Domenico Lesurdo

 Starmer says cost of sickness and disability benefits ‘devastating’ One of the richest economies in the world has been disable for a while: low or no economic growth. A capitalist economy which is dominated by the private sector and cannot resume growth. Who should the capitalist government go after to save money? The vulnerable.  Meanwhile, a man who used to earn 142 times the average salary of a nurse is lecturing British boys how to be ‘role models’ . Shouldn't he be at least attacking the British regime and the culture that is complicit in mass killing of Palestinians?